From the Email Inbox:How Low Can You Go

Let's look at the BMSV Income designations from not who they will include but who they exclude:

To Qualify for 70 Percent of the Apartments: A Single Person would be half of 16,856.00 that Low Low Income or 50% would be $ 8,326.00. (Income plus 2% of Asset Value = Combined Income) has to be less than 8,500.00 per individual. So if you have that 450.000.00 house or combined assets of a house, stocks and IRA and some SSI... you don't qualify for 70% of the Apartments.

To Qualify for the Low Income Apartments it would be 60% of the 16,856.00 that would be a Combined Income of $ 10,113.60 , So IF you had that 450,000.00 of assets at 2% that would be 9,000.00 of the income calculation leaving only $1,113.60 in cash payments from an IRA or SSI

So How Many of Our Seniors or our Families will qualify for any but the 12 Apartments, that will be rented at Market Rates?

This is not how the project was sold. We as a city are going into deeper debt to fund this project. and to defend it in court. Is this what we really want, where we want it? Is this building a better city?

How Many of Our Grand Terrace Seniors Will Be Excluded from residing in the Blue Mt. Senior Villas because their income and assets are too high?

There are 12 apartments that will be open regardless of your income, at market rate. So we can be fairly sure those apartments will be available for Our Residents and Family Members.

What are we buying with the expenditure of the funds and debt? What did we need? Did we just buy size 15 shoes when our feet are only size 10. Bigger is not always better.

Now would it be fair to say the Scope and Plan has changed so much from the original that the contract and agreements should be null and void, and there should be a stop and settlement hearing, and start over.

Is the goal a new Senior Center.. and a Park. Is the goal to have this down town central to services of transportation and shopping? Petta Park was to be In the Memory of Susan Petta a young vibrant active women who passed from her parents lives much to soon. How does all what is planned and done in the past been an answer to the goals? Is it time to settle up and dust ourselves off before we spend millions more on legal fees to defend the invalidation of zoning, and planning on the whim and fancy of the City Manager.

Clearly the Corporation for Better Housing, did not do an EIR sufficient for Judge Wade, that was needed in the past. Now they are doing an EIR Study. Why not have done it right the first time? Why are the Citizens Paying over and over again to teach the City that this is a protection to have this done first, so the citizens are not stuck with building drains, roads, and improvements that were not accounted for in the "original plans" that get rushed by Planning or Council, as with the OAC, and Manhole Covers. If it were not for Mr. Johnson and the folks who engage his services, GT Redevelopment Agency would have taken us down a real thorny path and sure it is reasonable to be cautious of any plan until there is a RDA project or involved project that is not based on bad data, high sales tactics, and missing or unavailable documents.

Today was a busy day in court. We'll see if the City has learned to dot the i's and cross the t's when they are doing their work.

Low income seniors are welcome in Grand Terrace. The point is don't tell the community these apartments are for "Our Seniors" and "Our Family Members" in order to gain public support for the project. We need low income housing for citizens of all ages as the jobs in Grand Terrace don't pay well enough for people to Live and Work In Grand Terrace and our shop clerks, child care and gardners should be able to live in Grand Terrace before they are 62. It is not the who will be living in the Apartments as much as it is how the sales pitch and plan was developed and presented.