Will city have to give $460K back to Feds?

Time is running out for the City to use a $460,000 gift from Sen. Frank Lautenberg -- or lose it.

If the money is not spent by June 30, 2007, the City will have to fork it over to the Feds.

How did we come to get this nice sum and why?

Plainfield Today pointed it out in a post on March 14, 2006 --

[Toward the end of Al McWilliams' first term], the McWilliams administration was in the midst of nailing down loose ends on the Tepper's redevelopment project. Now the Tepper's site had been vacant for decades and was a symbol of the dysfunctionality of Plainfield politics. Getting a mixed-use retail and residential project going on the site would mean that Plainfield's downtown would finally get moving again.

And combining that with getting a new office building on the Park-Madison lot would be a double-dose of good news for Plainfield's long-awaited renaissance.

In the midst of it all, a piece of genuine good luck came the city's way -- Sen. Frank Lautenberg had arranged for two sums of money to be set aside for Plainfield. One went to the Plainfield Public Library. . .for technology improvements. The other -- about $450,000 -- was earmarked specifically for improvements to the Tepper's building.

Why Tepper's?

Because part of the development agreement reached for the building was that the basement, on the order of 15,000+ square feet of raw space, was to be set aside for public use, rent-free, in perpetuity.

Now the City had no particular plan for that space at that moment, but the money, which would go a long way toward roughing out the space for some final use, certainly made the space attractive.

At first, there was talk of using it to rough out the space for a new Senior Center. That idea, as Plainfield Today previously reported, was shot down by the Seniors.

There was talk of making the space available as an arts 'incubator', with a small stage/screening theater/meeting space, offices and a common reception area for local arts groups, rehearsal rooms and gallery space in the entry lobby. This still strikes me as a good idea, but of course the City would have to make arts an integral part of its development plans. Not much sign of that yet.

Subsequently, the possibility of reshaping the space as new Council Chambers and offices for City Council members was taken up on a site visit by Council members and Economic Development staff.

The late Council President Ray Blanco may even have had this in mind when he sketched out the way he wanted City Hall Library arranged for agenda-setting sessions (see below).

Though forewarned in a transition memo to Mayor Robinson-Briggs by former Deputy City Administrator and Director of Economic Development Pat Ballard Fox,

...in her transition memorandum Pat Ballard Fox reminded the new Administration of both its existence and the danger of imminent loss if unspent (Plainfield Today, 8/23/2006).

and by discussion in this blog, the current administration has made no public moves to guard against the loss of these funds.

Now time is running out.

Will the Robinson-Briggs administration rescue Sen. Lautenberg's generous earmark before June 30 or will it drop the ball?

Feel free to give me odds.

-- Dan Damon

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