I have sat through almost every tedious council meeting over the last 16 months and have become increasingly weary of the whining from pro-development -- or, more appropriately the "development-at-any-cost" -- proponents, about how "stupid" the new environmental laws are, and how much money those laws are costing taxpayers. Well, guess what? What is REALLY costing taxpayers is not the adherence to those laws, but the "soft shoe sidestep" performed by the city in dodging those laws during the application, permitting and approval process.

We performed a study on how much money the city has spent on consultants in the approximate 8-month period of January, 2001 through July/August, 2001. The total is somewhere around $400,000. What was surprising, however, was how much money has been spent in having to go back to square one to UNDO a botched development process because either the city, the developer, or both, were too anxious to begin raking in their dough that they couldn't be bothered with the little additional time it took to comply with the laws. As with everything in life, there never seems to be enough time and money to do something right the first time, but we always seem to find the time to correct something when it's clear it has to be redone.

Here are just a few examples of a small portion of taxpayer funds the city has spent trying to correct a situation that went bad, either because of ignorance of, or ignoring our codes and laws (these figures do NOT include attorneys fees and cover only a portion of the costs):

• Bethany Terrace: $10,404.49
• Water Backwash Line: $26,421.65
• LID 97-1 (This is only a partial expense for wetland restoration and mitigation that was required due to the city's negligence in properly overseeing construction of the Wagley Creek LID sewer line construction): $120,000.00.

And, as if the botched Wagley Creek LID hasn't created enough of a financial "black hole" into which taxpayer funds are being sucked, the city now has another self-imposed legal disaster to resolve: Willow Run. (Instead of facing up to the reasons for its financial woes, the city keeps trotting out those poor ol' wayward scalawags, Lost Revenue (I-695), and his brother, Lost Permit Fees. The color of that white-wash looks more like the red running across the city's 2001 budget, which is pretty much self-inflicted.)

Both the city and the current development-heavy planning commission are wondering why residents are objecting so strongly to yet ANOTHER LID in the North Wagley area (one with clusters, yet -- another brilliant idea), and has significant misgivings about build-out of the industrial/commercial area? I think the trepidation residents' are feeling can be summed up in one hackneyed phrase: History repeats itself.