?Hizzoner Jer ♡s Cordish, Part Deux?

Posted: May 15th, 2009 | Filed under: Community, Personalities, Politics | 5 Comments »

I’ve been reading a lot of articles and have watched several TV exposés about Bernie Madoff.

I’m still not sure what makes this guy tick. There is an evil pathology there that still escapes me. The guy — and probably his wife and some cohorts — simply didn’t care who they messed over for their own personal financial and social aggrandizement.

And, while I can’t say that these Cordish folks, who seem hellbent on fleecing as many cities out of tax dollars as they might, can quite be branded as Madoffian, I’m beginning to wonder.

Some Louisvillians who are experiencing bad times, their businesses having been plundered asunder by the white elephant we call Fourth Street Live, along with some other inquisitive taxpayers with an affinity for local interests and taking care of our own first, as well as some just plain taxpayers wondering what da fuh? is happening with our tax dollars, are starting to look beyond the gloss at Cordish.

It’s not just happening in our burg either.

According to published reports, David Cordish is “known in Niagara Falls as a do-nothing developer who ran the Rainbow Centre Mall Mall into the ground, while at the same time pulling the wool over the eyes of the last three city administrations.”

Seems as if Cordish has been tabbed to build a (First phase: $387 million) Ballpark Village complex in St. Louis — “250 condos, 270,000 square feet of restaurants and entertainment space and 100,000 square feet of office space.” Seems the project was developed in 2005, and, years later, was/is, uh, still, at least in part, on the drawing board.

Just this week, a major St. Louis law firm, Polsinelli Shughart, announced it was changing plans for a new consolidated office. It considered moving into Cordish’s Ballpark Village complex, but “delays caused the firm to consider other alternatives.” Observers of the St. Louis business scene are wondering “How many companies do the Cardinals and developer Cordish have committed to actually locating to Ballpark Village?”

Is that a ringing in my ears, or does all this sound eerily familiar?

Nope, no ringing in my ears.

Other familiar Cordish stuff is going down in Kansas City. There Cordish did develop a Galleria-like project called the Power and Light District. With the same drill, i.e. the ability and right to close off streets for parties, concerts, etc., and to allow people to drink beer on the street. The latter which ability stems from special state legislation.

So, some other neighborhoods with lots of entertainment spots — locally owned and operated — started lobbying for permission to obtain “festival” liquor permits. And, well, guess who was front and center with their lawyers to fight the right of the locals to do as they have the right to do?

Too easy, the answer, right? Of course, the Cordishs and their phalanx of barristers at the bar. Those benevolent capitalists threatened to sue Kansas city, the very hand that fed them a cozy a previously unimagined tax break.

Did I mention that Cordish’s Kansas City project has come in, uh, way late? And not as completed as first announced?

Well, it did.

Imagine our surprise!

Anyway, some of this may be old news. But, here’s the point: Citizens of Louisville have the right to know what the real deal is between Mayor Jer and Cordish? What promises were made? What promises have been kept? What promises have been broken?

We have the right to know how and why Cordish is slipping in and out of town with duffel bags full of cash — Some of it going to Paris Hilton — while local businessmen and businesswomen are falling by the wayside, when a little help from our government could keep them afloat in these troubled times?

Mayor Jerry, we’ve known you a long time. Hell, you’ve been running this burg for a long time. We believe you to be an intelligent and honest man with the city’s best interests at heart.

But we gots to know, what up with this Cordish deal? Why have you turned your back on local businesses and turned over signed, blank checks to these carpetbaggers from Baltimore?

Talk to us. Show us the contracts. Show us the letters of understanding. Show us the communications.

Show us the money!

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