Merrill and HARC: Too Big to Fail

Posted on September 23rd, 2009 in City Council, HARC.

City Council Speech by Rick Williamson
for delivery on September 22, 2009

I take issue with even the idea of this Council over-turning its own HARC commission’s denial of the Merrill-Lynch sign application, for several reasons.
Most notably, for even thinking that boldly reversing HARC’s near-unanimous 5-1 decision without direct evidence of wrongdoing would be a prudent thing to do!
And also because HARC’s strong denial decision comes, mind you, at your own direction for them to learn and reflect on everything involved in this matter.  Their dutiful work in considering all the UDC regulations and Master Sign Plan requirements was painstakingly done – including repeated requests for the petitioner to either modify the sign or offer reasonable alternatives. The petitioner did neither.  Their outright refusal to offer anything besides a sign in direct violation of the requirements is what resulted in that bold 5-to-1 denial.  HARC had to deny it; the Master Sign Plan required them to deny it!
So it would take yet an even bolder decision by this body to overturn that bold HARC denial!!  And if you did overturn HARC, what would it reveal about your motives in doing so?
Well, I can tell you what it would reveal to me and other OldTowner.com patrons in this room.  It would say the decision had to be political, not factual; partisan, not credible.
And, it would say this Council had succumbed to the cancer that’s infected so many of our institutions today.  They simply decided Merrill-Lynch was too big to fail.
No matter that being too big to fail makes everything around it doomed to fail.  No matter that our Unified Development Code we’ve spent so much of our town’s time and attention to create and nurture, is ultimately worth less than this local Wall Street branch’s desire to step all over it.  No matter that any one looking for factual merits for overturning HARC… can find none!
In the end, this has merely turned out to be yet another case of a big money institution trying to have their way with the rules of where they live and what they can demand of us.  Our rules and our considerations be damned!
To legitimately approve this overturn request would require this Council to produce voluminous records of evidence that HARC and its duly chosen members of that Council-commissioned body have acted erroneously and irresponsibly in their repeated denials of this case. Anything less than that, is saying Merrill-Lynch is too big to fail, and that this Council is too powerless to care.

I take issue with even the idea of this Council over-turning its own HARC commission’s denial of the Merrill-Lynch sign application, for several reasons.

Most notably, for even thinking that boldly reversing HARC’s near-unanimous 5-1 decision without direct evidence of wrongdoing would be a prudent thing to do!

And also because HARC’s strong denial decision comes, mind you, at your own direction for them to learn and reflect on everything involved in this matter.  Their dutiful work in considering all the UDC regulations and Master Sign Plan requirements was painstakingly done – including repeated requests for the petitioner to either modify the sign or offer reasonable alternatives. The petitioner did neither.  Their outright refusal to offer anything besides a sign in direct violation of the requirements is what resulted in that bold 5-to-1 denial.  HARC had to deny it; the Master Sign Plan required them to deny it!

So it would take yet an even bolder decision by this body to overturn that bold HARC denial!!  And if you did overturn HARC, what would it reveal about your motives in doing so?

Well, I can tell you what it would reveal to me and other OldTowner.com patrons in this room.  It would say the decision had to be political, not factual; partisan, not credible.

And, it would say this Council had succumbed to the cancer that’s infected so many of our institutions today.  They simply decided Merrill-Lynch was too big to fail.

No matter that being too big to fail makes everything around it doomed to fail.  No matter that our Unified Development Code we’ve spent so much of our town’s time and attention to create and nurture, is ultimately worth less than this local Wall Street branch’s desire to step all over it.  No matter that any one looking for factual merits for overturning HARC… can find none!

In the end, this has merely turned out to be yet another case of a big money institution trying to have their way with the rules of where they live and what they can demand of us.  Our rules and our considerations be damned!

To legitimately approve this overturn request would require this Council to produce voluminous records of evidence that HARC and its duly chosen members of that Council-commissioned body have acted erroneously and irresponsibly in their repeated denials of this case. Anything less than that, is saying Merrill-Lynch is too big to fail, and that this Council is too powerless to care.

 

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