CCDC
Ludwig Steps Down From CCDC
January 13, 2020 
Former Boise City Councilor Scot Ludwig stepped down from the CCDC, Boise’s urban renewal agency in order to give newly elected Mayor Lauren McLean to a chance to appoint someone who shares her vision for downtown.
Ludwig suggested in his letter of resignation that McLean appoint a current City Councilor to fill the vacancy he created.
Although the Capitol City Development Corp. (CCDC) is the city urban renewal agency, it is an “independent body, corporate and politic.” The mayor appoints members, but city control stops at that point. No more than half the members can be city councilors.
Former Mayor Dave Bieter appointed himself and unless he makes the same gentlemanly move as Ludwig, he will remain on the board until his CCDC term expires in October 2022.
All of the current members of CCDCV are Bieter appointees and supporters.
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Comments & Discussion
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Jan 13, 2020, 3:59 pm
“a chance to appoint someone who shares her vision for downtown”
? ? ? ? ?
Who says CCDC should share the same vision as the Mayor or the City Council?
Kind-of audacious for Ludwig to ‘suggest’ anything to the Mayor; but that’s par for the recent course, and part of why there is a new mayor.
“I respectfully urge Mayor McLean,___ to include a currently elected council.”
CCDC should be dissolved asap.
Jan 14, 2020, 10:03 am
The CCDC is NOT, repeat NOT, independent.
It depends on my tax money and the City Council’s tight fisted control.
It is one of the City Council’s slush funds. Beiter needs to resign from CCDC as well. Bet he does not.
Jan 14, 2020, 10:16 am
Holly Wooding’s (Boise CIty COuncil member) is on the CCDC board too….if you happen to be a legislator and you read this blog you can see how the renewal district is nothing more than a play toy for the Boise City leadership. Way to write a crappy law.
EDITOR NOTE–Woodings’ husband is on the CCDC.
Jan 14, 2020, 11:33 am
Seems like Bieter needs to step down since he appointed himself. There has got to be a law somewhere for that.
Jan 14, 2020, 2:40 pm
That CCDC is a bigger mess than was ever anticipated. If Mayor McLean appoints Woodings, then both she and her husband would have to declare a conflict of interest on all matters, and that might really improve the outcomes. But the Mayor can’t and won’t do that. I disagree with CCDC taking profits from one project and rolling it to another. The funds could/should be dispersed to the agencies that have been denied tax dollars to keep CCDC in existance. Shouldn’t new projects be supported by bonds?
I don’t think CCDC (local taxpayers) should be responsible for cleaning up the oil tanks on the bench either. Let the property owners do that. It is an oil co for goodness sakes, they have reserves for things like that.
I hope the new adminstration at city hall studies urban renewal very carefully. We don’t need to be giving anything away to keep ourselves alive anymore, agree?
Jan 14, 2020, 3:55 pm
Major conflict of interest, as shown by his having to recuse himself on Board votes that involved areas he owned property. He should have stepped down long ago.
It seems like the CCDC and their Urban Renewal Districts are just a loophole to make absolutely certain that the property tax the landowner/developer is paying comes directly back to them to improve their land, and/or only the land around them – rather than it being allocated across the city into other areas that may need funding for more urgent improvements.
The “scrapping off” of incremental tax increases leaves less for the City to allocate across the board, meanwhile, the cost to run the city increases with inflation, adding more staff, paying for more consultant studies, etc . . . so what do they do, they take the 3% increase to make up for this.
Jan 14, 2020, 7:02 pm
CCDC or is it CCCP?
I can’t reiterate enough how dangerous that these self-asserting planning organizations are. These Great Leap Forward types are anathema to Freedom. I keep seeing Bernie stickers on cars and we now learn that if Trump wins again, “the cities will burn!” says a Bernie planner. How “woke” are OUR city planners?
Are we due now for “upzoning” ordinances that ban single family homes? It’s happened in Oregon and proposed in Virginia, and many other places.
We already KNOW that public records show Paulette Jordan received Soros $$ for her campaign. When do the Soros $$ start buying OUR city politicians’ campaigns for them. That’s how Virginia lost their legislature to the Commies who are in a full blown war against gun owners there.
Have you heard about all of these SJW prosecutors that Soros has gotten elected? They want to decriminalize all kinds of crimes and Californicate the rest of the nation. So does Bloomberg.
The question isn’t who should take Ludwig’s place, it’s how soon can we abolish CCCP….oh, I mean CCDC!
Jan 15, 2020, 12:59 pm
There should be ZERO board members who are also on city council. For heaven’s sake. Spread the leadership around. There is incredible talent all over the valley. Let’s encourage each other in our neighborhoods to get more involved so there are MORE voices at the table.
Jan 15, 2020, 4:48 pm
At the very least Board members should be elected
Jan 15, 2020, 9:25 pm
We should also very publicly look at the definition of blight. That’s what urban renewal was for. It wasn’t to enrich developers, property owners, or neighborhoods. The smell test is almost literal perhaps.
If urban renewal dollars are redirected from fire, police, school for development, by law, then how did the former mayor make agreements to compensate the schools, or not take from the schools. Was it for political support?
But if there is a law, can you legally create agreements contrary to the law? I don’t think so.
The city could enforce their zoning code to eliminate nuisance properties without having to do urban renewal. Does this say that most property owners are jerks, or just broke and without ideas about how to improve their own properties?
Even better, are the banks in on this scheme? Possibly.
Jan 15, 2020, 11:18 pm
Idaho law does allow CCDC to be elected by vote. But the prior leadership benefitted from the appointee “back-scratching” arrangement.
Jan 16, 2020, 3:11 am
“Paulette Jordan”, I had hoped I would never hear that name again.
Jan 16, 2020, 1:59 pm
The fact is that the Idaho Legislature screwed up and allows this kind of insider collusion.
They failed to understand that urban politicians like Beiter / McLean and others do not respect the voters and will find any way possible to get around them.
Further the legislature allowed urban politicals to define blight as “anything we want it to be – – neener…neener!!”
Jan 17, 2020, 6:25 am
The CCDC is like training wheels on a bike. At SOME time They are needed.
The city elected public servants over the years have included the CCDC in all growth to a point that our public servants are working for the CCDC not the property owners of Boise. This scenario was most obvious at the meeting last summer, at South Junior High, to create urban renewal on the Bench. We’ll see if Mayor McLean is Dave Bieter in a dress?
Jan 22, 2020, 8:56 pm
So now I’ve been informed that someone named Graybeal from the city says that the city is going to pony up $100k to supplement the $90k that CCDC gave to street newspaper vendors for their stands. HOLD YOUR HORSES GRAYBEAL!
The city is not in the newspaper business. The city is not in the streetscape business either. Are the paper people going to pay us for this? Aren’t they responsible for their stands on the sidewalks if they fall over. HOLD YOUR HORSES GRAYBEAL!
This is a good test for the new administration. Did the city sign some obligation previously for these things? What law allows these things on the street, and who does it say is responsible?
This is sounding like another give away because the city is too rich. A hundred grand here, a hundred grand there. It is not the city’s job to pay for what the CCDC tells us to pay for. Holy cow.
Jan 30, 2020, 1:07 pm
CCDC started as a redevelopment agency in 1965, back in the days when downtown needed help and could be considered “blighted.” The Guardian advocated for its being disbanded back in 2007 https://boiseguardian.com/2007/04/12/time-to-dissolve-ccdc/ and noted in 2019 that CCDC has no political independence https://boiseguardian.com/2019/04/16/independent-body-corporate-and-politic/. Similar types of redevelopment agencies were disbanded by the courts in California, recognizing that such agencies inappropriately control and use public tax dollars to benefit developers. As noted in the California lawsuit, “[t]he projects had nothing to do with reversing blight, but everything to do with subsidizing private real estate ventures that otherwise made no economic sense.” Boise downtown is far from “blighted” and hasn’t been for a long time. CCDC should have been disbanded long ago.
Jan 31, 2020, 7:39 am
add my two cents to yours.