HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-06-25 Public Comment - B. LaMeres and L. Sabena - agenda item J.4 Midtown Urban Renewal District Fiscal Year 2026 Work Plan and Budget, Fiscal Year 2025 Annual ReportFrom:Brian LaMeres
To:Bozeman Public Comment
Cc:Lisa Sebena; Brian LaMeres
Subject:[EXTERNAL]agenda item J.4 Midtown Urban Renewal District Fiscal Year 2026 Work Plan and Budget, Fiscal Year2025 Annual Report
Date:Tuesday, May 6, 2025 11:57:28 AM
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Hello again City Commission –
Picking up on the conversation further down below from about this same time last year.
The response provided during last year’s Commission meeting by your staff person to our
concerns expressed below was, respectfully, pretty pathetic.
For starters he characterized our email as accusing the City of a “money grab”.
I realize you hold this particular staff person in pretty high regard, but that’s quite an insulting
tone to take when we’re just trying to have an informative discussion here.
But go back and listen again to your staff person’s answer. He basically said that there’s a
very slim chance that any TIF improvements will ever occur near our property due to the
complexities involved with projects involving the Montana Department of Transportation.
And this was clearly and obviously a known fact at the time our property/properties were
added to the District.
But our properties were still added to the Midtown District nonetheless.
Yet (and I apologize if I’m just missing something) as I look at your Work Plan and Budget for
Midtown on tonight’s agenda, once again I do not see any proposed improvements anywhere
near our area of the District.
So our tax money – instead of being used to fund dire essential needs like the Police
Department – is instead being diverted to improve other areas of the District far, far away from
us. And again, our own tax money is arguably being used to beautify the environment around
our competition.
Or the money is being used for “affordable” housing. Housing that by your own recent
acknowledgment really isn’t affordable, but since it technically meets the definition of
affordability that’s on the books, we’ll call it affordable.
So again, we’d prefer no response at all instead of the kind of response we got last year – we’re
mainly just getting this on the record.
Thank you!
-Brian & Lisa
Lisa Sebena
Brian LaMeres
824 West Main Street
Bozeman, MT 59715
From: Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 11:58 AM
To: comments@bozeman.net
Cc: Lisa Sebena <Lisa@lewisandclarkmotels.com>; Brian LaMeres <Brian@lewisandclarkmotels.com>
Subject: agenda item J.3 Midtown Urban Renewal District 2025 Biennium Budget and Fiscal Year
2025 Work Plan and Budget (Fine)
Hello City Commission –
Just a reminder that in 2015 you expanded the boundaries of this TIF district, yet since then the
bulk of the projects in your Work Plan and Budget seem to be within the original district
boundary.
A cynic might say that the only reason you expanded the boundary was to be able to capture
the tax increment from more properties, and that you never really intended to address the
“blight” that you identified on these newly captured properties.
If you pose this question to staff, they are probably going to reply with “all property owners
within the district have the same opportunity to submit a proposal or apply for
grants/financing” or something like that.
With all due respect to staff, would you be satisfied with an answer like that?
Or would you rather prefer that the City got to work addressing whatever blight they had
identified so that eventually your property would have that blight distinction removed?
That is what we are asking, since we have paid well over $150,000 into this TIF since the
district boundaries were expanded to include our properties.
And suffice it to say we would much rather have had that money spent on public safety and the
schools rather than to construct amenities and beautify the environment surrounding our
business competition on North 7th Avenue.
Thank you!
Lisa Sebena & Brian LaMeres
Lewis & Clark Motel
824 West Main Street
Bozeman, MT 59715
Bozeman and Three Forks
406.586.3341 ♦ 406.285.3474 www.lewisandclarkmotels.com
info@lewisandclarkmotelbozeman.com