CMS has moved into extortion, common practice among racketeers. Does anyone care?
County Commissioner Bill James details the extraordinary bid by CMS to force the county to hand over a total of about $23m. or risk scuttling an elaborate Uptown land swap in the works for several years. Hanging in the balance is the $400m. First Ward development both the county and city governments very much want to happen.
To make the deal work CMS needs to sell a piece of vacant property to the county. The county would then twin that parcel with a city-owned parcel to form a park that is supposed to part of the overall mixed-use development. CMS honcho Pete Gorman has decided to use this leverage, or at least try to.
Several things stick out in this episode. One, CMS really does not understand that the county is out of money, at least in terms of the debt it can issue for CMS. The county just does not have an extra $13m. it can hand over right now in addition to the $9m. CMS already received for the purposed of helping it relocate out of the EdShed. Two, CMS took that $9m. last fall but used it to upfit schools rather than pay off office needs due to CMS brass concerns that it would “look bad” to spend money on the central office. Note the cynicism there. And three, CMS is angling for a $30m. office solution off of Nations Ford Road and is not about to take no for an answer.
In short, just like the round of teacher layoffs, we have CMS’ upper management moving to protect itself at the expense of the larger community. It would be interesting to hear where the various candidates for school board stand on this move.
