Wow, talk about a firestorm.
At the last council session the plans for the reopening/financing of the Aztec theater came up.
Prior to that discussion Mayor Distler read a statement. Apparently there was a video on line concerning this matter. The video had in excess of 11,000 views. But, there were some statements that were not factually correct.
One of the statements in the video was that the money the ownership was requesting from the city was a loan. Simply put............not true. It was a "give" from the economic development fund. There were some claw back provisions (good for only five years). One of the provisions, which were not part of the original plan involved what would happen if the new ownership sold the property within the first five years and how the city could/would recover funds. Some of the other clawbacks were in case the entity shut down for a period of 6 months, but the city's recoupment was at a prorated basis. The fact is, the money was not a loan.
One of the other items in the video was that the money for the theater was coming from the Nieman Now! project. Simply put, wrong.
There were other items that the mayor addressed.
One would think that folks would be happy that items that were misstatements of facts were corrected. Instead social media has blown up to include among other things that the mayor was corrupt. Allegations that the mayor shifted funds between accounts were really outrageous. In our city the mayor cannot shift funds among accounts.
Corrupt for stating the truth. What a unique concept.
