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Public comment at the April 15 City Council Meeting
At your recent retreat, there was a renewed interest in redevelopment in Martinez and $40,000 was allocated for getting some information out to the citizens of Martinez. At the same meeting the members of the council could see no “cons” to forming a redevelopment agency.
Not being an expert in redevelopment, but having looked into it a bit, I do see some potential problems with a redevelopment agency. Rather than us getting in a discussion about pros/cons of an RDA, I would like to encourage the council to actively explore some of the “cons” of redevelopment as the city moves forward in the discussion about and RDA.
There are good options to get a balanced perspective about redevelopment agencies. In a letter to the Gazette, Marlene Haws mentioned a conference in Long Beach at the end of this month that was relevant and inexpensive. The city of Lodi just decided against redevelopment in a vote in March. I think that some good current information could be found in Lodi.
Martinez could use some attention devoted to our downtown. There’s a lot of potential that we haven’t tapped into yet. I’m hoping that the work going forward by the council and the community in general are done in a spirit of cooperation and done for the greater good of Martinez. A good balanced discussion of the issues at hand would be a great start in this effort.
Mark Thomson