Be careful what you wish for. The Council was the CCDC for a while in the early 80’s. Nothing happened until private citizens were appointed. This may be a case of the wrong private citizens or a lack of oversight or the wrong director. I don’t think putting the Boise City Council back as the CCDC will get us anywhere. After all 2 of them are on the board now and look what’s happened.

EDITOR NOTE–Those two are up for re-election and with elected CCDC members (council or otherwise) the citizens can oust them if needed. You do make a good point and if memory serves, those councilors and mayor got voted out of office.

I have heard the State Controllers Office will perform the audit for free. Unknown if that is true but I have been told all the city needs to do is ask.

Tibbs is a really nice guy who is being sold a bill of goods in the form of viability.

He will continue to show that he can’t hang in there with the tough guys and be left holding the bag for some people who just won’t be there for the long haul.

Has everyone forgotten what Team Dave had to deal with when they got in????

In response to Clancy: The city’s audit office reports to the council, not the mayor. Council was very specific about that when they formed the office after Coles. So the mayor can ask the council to order the audit, but he can’t do it himself.
As for the point about having the state controller do the audit for free, there was some todo about that when the council spent big money (I don’t remember how much) to hire private forensic auditors to dig into Coles/Lyman. People suggested the council was wasting money by hiring Jefferson Wells when the state would do it free. Then the state controller acknowledged his office didn’t have the expertise to do that kind of audit or the manpower to do it quickly. Might be a similar issue here. Besides, the city has the office. Why not use it?

This situation calls for a n independent,third party audit,possibly by an out of state ,federal auditing official.As for the mayor appointing his own blue-ribbon committee to look into CCDC’s games …. That’s a good way for Team dave to cover for his buddies on CCDC. Again a third party committee, perhaps out of state that specializes in urban planning and spending would be more objective. Jim Tibbs has not been upstaged by the Mayor or Eberle… He’s simply smart enough to let the mayor and friends hang themselves with their hypocritical efforts to investigate CCDC.After all it was Jim Tibbs who first wanted an audit and I might say he has been first on other issues ( a better bus system) and a de-tox center for the city. As I said before if Jim wants to be mayor,all he has to do is run… after all he’s proved his committment to the People of this city over the years!

So just read the KTVB website (being a Boisean in D.C. can’t really watch the broadcast) and noticed in the article about this issue they questioned what brought about the city council’s decision yesterday to audit the CCDC. Nowhere in the article was the Guardian mentioned for first questioning the CCDC’s role much less pushing the issue to get it finally done. Thankfully it is finally getting done, but dang KTVB, lets give some credit where it is due.

Pat- calling for an audit doesn’t just happen over night. You should give the office of the Mayor it’s due credit and respect.

My fear is that the audit will be little more than white wash. They will go over the books, pick up a few small things, like the payment to the Arid Club, say harsh things to a couple of sacrificial staffers, and then proclaim everything to be well and good.

Unfortunately, the audit is unlikely to do the things that most need to be done. For instance, the audit is unlikely to investigate whether or not CCDC should perpetually be expanding its boundaries, and thus transferring ever more and more of the tax burden away from city center businesses and onto business and residential tax payers further out.

The audit is unlikely to look at the makeup of CCDC’s board and suggest a broader membership.

More to the point, the audit will almost certainly not investigate whether or not CCDC should or should not exist.

If the coming mayoral race is to be anything more than a beauty pageant, one of the candidates needs to do something substantial. Calling for this audit might have qualified if they had done it without the Guardian making the first call, but they didn’t.

One of the best things I can think of to separate a candidate from the status quo is for one of them to go beyond the audit do what it takes to put CCDC’s future on the ballot. Let the people decide which they prefer, CCDC or a tax cut.

Mr. Jones,

The audit is just the first step. Team Dave has proposed a citizens committee that would examine the operational aspects of the CCDC and present suggestions/recommendations regarding how the agency operates. That may not satisisy the scorched-earth policy of the Guardian, but it’s clearly a prudent step in the right direction.

EDITOR NOTE–Nick, the auditor works for the COUNCIL, not the mayor. THEY are the blue ribbon committee.

The entire thrust of the audit process enacted by the council was to take it–and any debate or decisions AWAY from the mayor (any mayor). That sir, is not scorched earth, it is good government and those elected must be held accountable for their actions or inactions.

Editor,

You’ve made it very clear that you believe it’s time for the CCDC to be dismantled. The overwhelming evidence is that, overall, CCDC has been good for downtown Boise. Meanwhile, the Mayor and Council seem to believe that the benefits of CCDC far outweigh the negatives. However, it’s clear that they also believe it’s time to re-evaluate the mission and role of CCDC. The audit is the logical first step. Second, there needs to be input on what should happen to CCDC. Would you really be content if it was only the Council and Mayor who decides the future of CCDC? Wouldn’t you feel better if there were also stakeholders from all walks of life involved? Your belief that the final decision should be made by the Council based solely on an audit without citizen input seems illogical when–on the very same blog page–you’re calling for a public vote on the logistics of a new police station.

EDITOR NOTE–Nick, if you are suggesting a vote of the public on the issue (perhaps including the tax increment financing scheme) I would certainly welcome that. If you are in favor of a committee hand picked by the mayor, I oppose that. Given your logic you must endorse my 20 year plea to have police and fire commission(s).

Mr. Adams,

I agree with you that an audit is a good first step in sorting out some of the problems associated with CCDC.

I also like the idea of a citizens committee having the final say on the agency’s future. The difference between you and me is that, instead of a rubber stamp committee hand picked by the council, I prefer the conclusions of a much more elite citizens committee. Namely, the opinion of the general population as measured by the ballot box.

As to the evidence that CCDC has been good for downtown Boise, it is at best underwhelming. By CCDC’s own estimation they were a failure under their original incarnation. (See http://www.ccdcboise.com/about/history.htm)

They claim to be a great success under their revised vision. However, if they actually have a visioin and mission statement that guides their actions, I am at a loss to find it on their web site. The closest I could find is they seem to want Boise to be, “traditional urban style, mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented”. Exactly how that differs from the Boise of decades past is a mystery to me. And, couldn’t that goal simply be rolled into the city’s comp plan at a tremendous reduction in cost?

The thing that CCDC does for absolute certainty, is subsidize businesses in CCDC’s ever-increasing territory at the expense of tax payers with businesses and residences outside their area. If the mayor and the council are as sure of CCDC’s benefit to the area as their rhetoric indicates they are, they should welcome the vindication that a referendum on the subject would provide.

Matt R. – there is only one school district in the CCDC area and that is the Boise School District. The other taxing entities which forgo the tax increment are the City of Boise, Ada County and the incompetent and corrupt Ada County Highway District.

Hang tough Sara.

In my dictionary, there is some latitude in the definition of corrupt.

I don’t think many people will disagree with the statement that ACHD’s decision to use taxpayer money to fund the $20 million East Parkcenter Bridge is a corrupt version of the original plan that required it to be paid for by the Harris Ranch developer.

Sara may have other issues in mind but the preceding example is enough to make her point.

Thanks Pfffft. And Cyclops when I say corrupt I mean the definition of “changed from a sound condition to an unsound one”, also “lacking integrity”.

Some examples of our corrupt ACHD:

An ACHD commissioner who uses her position to further a feud with a neighbhor.

An ACHD commissioner who when presented with information on growth in the Overland/Eagle area and a potential lawsuit says ” I don’t care about that just tell me how many impact fees we get”.

A commission who continually denied the City of Eagle info on revenues/expenses relative to their City and who had their main spokesmouth Quintana say they didn’t have info like that. Turns out it was a lie since a study just like that was done in 2003.

That self same study does not account for around $50,000,000 (yep that’s million) in an 8 year period. No wonder the study has not been updated.

Need I say more?