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Developer defends $3 million project, criticizes city process during public comment
Summary
A private developer told the council he plans a $3 million downtown investment and defended the use of city demolition funds, framing the issue as a systems problem rather than a personal attack on the mayor and urging the council to support development.
Jim Kenberg identified himself as a private developer during the public-comment period and defended his planned investment in downtown property while criticizing how the demolition decision became a council controversy.
Kenberg told the council he will "put in a $3 million project" at the site and said private contractors do the demolition work. He said the city’s use of a $40,000 economic-development allocation to enable his private investment raised system-level questions: "My biggest issue here is that our system allowed that to happen," he said, adding that the mayor was not his target.
Kenberg insisted the demolition was legal according to the solicitor’s opinion and asked council to apologize for questioning the process; he said he had received mostly positive public responses about the project. Council members responded during the public-comment exchange to clarify that the speaker’s concern was understood as a critique of process and not a personal attack.
The comment period included back-and-forth about whether the economic-development funds used for demolition were hotel-tax–derived and how those funds interact with other city budgets. No formal council action was taken on the developer’s remarks during the meeting.
