MASON CITY – The year was 2003.
Jean Marinos was newly-elected as Mason City’s mayor that February and within weeks, City Hall would follow through on a project called Northbridge that continues to haunt the city budget ten years later.
Northbridge was a semi-grand development project supported by downtown proponents and the Globe Gazette, among others. It accomplished one goal – keeping Fareway downtown – and little else (we lost Calvary Alliance Church), at a cost of millions of dollars to Mason City taxpayers.
The pain of Northbridge continues to haunt the taxpayers of Mason City.
According to figures released to NIT, debt for the Fareway grocery store phase of the Northbridge project was issued on April 1, 2003 for $2,000,000. The original debt issue was for 15 years at a true interest cost of 5.2485% per year average and paid for through the Community Growth TIF revenues. The city pays interest on the debt every six months (December and June) and principal once a year in June. The debt has been re-financed by the city’s Finance Department to a more manageable true interest cost of 1.1791% over the remaining six years. The debt won’t be fully retired until 2018.
For this fiscal year, the city will pay $291,046 for Northbridge debt. Interestingly, the city needed to cut $295,000 from its budget this year to avoid a tax increase. To offset the shortfall, the Mayor and City Council have tentatively decided to raid retirement accounts for fire fighters, police officers and other city employees.
The city is now embarking on another two-syllable project called Blue Zones. Time will tell what the true cost to taxpayers is and what the end benefit to the community will hold.
NORTHBRIDGE COSTS CITY MILLIONS
So your link in the comments is a link back to the same article?
Some here have already hit on it. It is indeed true that closing off Federal and restricting traffic drove folks to the malls. I guess hem old folks couldn’t have them young whipper snappers cruising Federal in their jacked up cars. Nothing changes.
The mall downtown in retrospect, was a bad idea for this very reason. Today and into the future Federal would have been tourist attraction if left alone.
This way we must always strive to keep governments as small as we can.
The Northbridge Project was actually approved in the fall 0f 2002.It was bid in the summer of 2003. The council in 2002 was:Mayor Bill Schikel, Lee Snell,Leonard Foster,Don Nelson,Lori Henry,John Jaszewski and Roger Bang. The vote was 5-0 in favor of the project with Lee Snell abstaining because he owned property in the area.20/20 hindsight is always easy to have. At that time Fareway had just moved their store out of the Clear Lake downtown to the west side. That was the concern here also.Almost everyone agreed that a downtown grocery store was vital to the survival of the center of Mason City. Jean Marinos really had NOTHING to do with this project except being the Mayor when it started.
@Reggie-BULL. I had several meetings with her and Tim M. on this issue. Do not tell me she had nothing to do with it. I was there.
You probably did have meetings with her but why blame her when the deal was made the previous year.If Matt and you are going to blame someone, shouldn’t it be Don,Leonard,Lori,John or Roger?It seems to me Jeans hands were tied by a agreement/contract made when she was not on the council or the mayor.I guess Matts and your logic escapes me.
@Reggie-I blame Tim M. he was the one who railroaded this project through because he needed a big project on his resume’. Jean in my opinion was a figurehead piece of fluff that was put in there just to make sure their pet projects were finished. She never had an original thought in her whole life. I never had a meeting with her that Tim.M. wasn’t there speaking for her.
You blame Tim Moerman for railroading this through?Didn’t Mr Moerman work for the city council?If I remember correctly the city council directed him to come up with a plan to keep Fareway downtown. He came up with a plan and the council passed it.Obviously you and Matt don’t agree with that plan.Again if anyone is to blame it is that council.
Of course a newly elected mayor that probably didn’t know all the facts of what had been promised would have the city administrator at every meeting. To me it would be silly not to. He is the one being paid to know the facts and reasons behind decisions that were made previously.
“Jean in my opinion was a figurehead piece of fluff that was put in there to make sure their pet projects were finished” Put in there by whom?If I recall correctly she was elected by the voters of Mason City in a special election after Bill Schikel resigned to go to the Iowa house.
@Reggie-come on now-she is a downtowner all the way and is associated with the Chamber, the Park Inn and all the other haves downtown. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see who has a vested interest in having her on the council or as mayor.
“Vested interest” and by that you mean the voters of course. The only ones that have a TRUE vested interest is the voters. Everyone else is a spectator or worse a uninformed critic that is to lazy to vote.
@Reggie-that is BULL and you know it.
Good comeback.Well thought out and concise.My hat is off to you.
Matt – to me your article raises the whole subject of government financing for what essentially are private enterprise projects – which I think are usually a bad idea with questionable results.
It simply does not make much sense allowing generally unqualified local, county or state officials to take our tax dollars and then use the same to fund projects in the private sector. In the big scheme of things, we end up with one taxing district competing with another in pursuit of employers.
Private firms seeking to relocate or expand operations are now well skilled at playing the game – all to their benefit and all to the detriment of taxpayers somewhere. Further, the process is fraught with all sorts of opportunities for mischief which range from a quid-pro-quo favors to outright bribery.
If the taxpayers were able to come together and restrict all levels of government from dabbling in private projects and fund only truly public projects a lot of money would be saved. Private enterprise would actually have to choose locations based upon underlying economics of the market – not the best deal that can be crafted from government.
As to downtown revitalization, it is a lost cause and the city council sealed its fate years ago when it approved projects on the west side. Whether they could have carved out any sites in the downtown area is highly unlikely as that would be a taking by government for the benefit of private enterprise. This concept was clobbered a few years ago in Minnesota when Best Buy had to pony up more money for their corporate site acquired through a public taking.
Right. I’ve actually argued privately but not here on NIT that Mason City sealed its fate 40+ years ago when it decided to move its high school out of the downtown area into a corn field. Then, it did worse by moving the junior college even further out into a corn field. Both would have been huge draws to the downtown, but instead, the “not in my backyard” people won. Just like they won most recently when they shot down a casino that could have come here. This is why MC perpetually loses… it has the wrong people calling the shots and no one with any guts to run things.
As I recall, the casino failed due to the efforts of one particular council woman – who no longer lives here.
As to the wrong people calling the shots – as regards the use of taxpayer funds for development – until there is a broader consensus to prevent competing cities/counties/states from doing likewise, we are all swimming in the same ocean and likely have to participate just to maintain a static position. Whoever is in the position to call the shots will face the same dilemma.
@4ever49 I totally agree! While everyone condemns the poor for working the welfare system to get the most money out of government they applaud business for doing the same thing. I don’t care if you are business or the poor get off your ass and make your own money and leave mine alone!
Jean Marinos was a bartender in Texas; married one of her customers, moved here, he died. Then married J. Marinos and the rest is well known. I am not impressed, never was.
@As A Matter-you are absolutely correct. I had several meetings with Marinos in her office with Tim M. over the Northbridge Project and Central Park which was another B.S. project that was done to set up the Park Inn at taxpayer cost.
“Blue Zones” is 2 1/2 syllables. 🙂
Just playin’ with ya Matt. Good article.
Matt, great article as always. You’ve proven the link between Jean Marinos as a failed mayor and now a failed council lady. She got elected and the first thing she did was screw us all. This town elects the same failures over and over and this failure is 10 years and still going. She was definitely a backer of northbridge as I recall and we’re still paying the price.
Matt, so are you trying to blame jean for north bridge? As mayor Jean would not of had a vote. It would have been the council. So can you enlighten us who was on the council back then? I am curious who it was.
Sour grapes. Probably Timmy M.
Ohhh and so your the only person who thinks nothing goes on behind closed doors? Or at the country club or where ever they met in those days?. How.you think the rich get richer and the poor pay the tab.
Who were those businesses that went away? Did they relocate elsewhere? Are they still in business today? How many buildings were unoccupied in downtown Mason City before Northbridge. How many are unoccupied now?
That would be helpful to know so a true assessment could be made.
How much money is coming out of the firefighters and policeman’s pension fund.Last month the city legals showed almost $50,000 being deposited in IPERS.
Many communities in Iowa are severely underfunded when it comes to those pensions.
Half of the IPERS deposit was the employee contribution.
Our city leaders told us this was a great project and would lead to the downtown coming back to life. And all it did was block off downtown. Its time the city leaders and the other big shots in town stay out of our pockets and let the people decide if they want downtown to die. Quit throwing away my money.
I think this goes to show that those in government who have never run a (successful) business have no place trying to cobble together packages like this one. It might look good on paper to these book-smart wannabes, put when the rubber hits the road later and the dust clears, Mason City is left holding the bag while many of these folks left town. We very well could have the same thing happening here now with Bookmeyer and others who have never been a success at anything now making policy. Beware, Mason City… Eric and his A-Team have slipped a roofie into your drink and they are now unbuttoning your blouse.
I still remember how horrible it was when the City closed off Federal and created the one-way loop in 1968. We all hated it. It was no longer any fun to go to Mason City on the weekends and it was the end of an era. It seemed as if all the great downtown stores then started closing – Buttreys, Stevensons, Roberts, and some whose names I no longer remember. The downtown slowly started dying along with the diversion of traffic away from Federal. It just seems as if every change the City has made has been for the worse. You cut off the main artery through a town or a body, you kill it.
Next time Fareway wants to move, let ’em move. Northbridge is one expensive piece of life support. I don’t see much better coming from the streetscape either. Same homeless and drunks shuffling around on State Street. How long until the city kicks in for the hotel to keep it going?
These comments are so true the north end died the day they blocked Federal from going all the way through !!!!!!
The $295,000 in budget cuts that City Council made was not necessary to offset tax increases attributable to the City because there are none. It was to help offset anticipated tax increases from other governmental taxing bodies.
Please check your reading. I only stated “the city needed to cut $295,000 from its budget this year to avoid a tax increase.” The state rollback is the main culprit. It is common knowledge, however, the free-spending ways of this mayor and council, and without raiding the retirement funds, the city may have been looking at a shortfall on its end.
And with the TIF spending it causes the other taxing entities to ask for higher levy rates or new Levies to offset the lost revenues….
Could this be a direct correlation to the Conference Board approving a $1 million dollar project to re-assess residential and commercial properties in Mason City? Mayor/Council, Supervisors and School Board approved the move.
At the time this went through I was somewhat involved in local politics. The church was not the only thing lost during this project. I can remember attending engineering meetings at city hall and hearing business after business complain about their loss of business. A lot of them just went away and were never heard from again. The great project only did one thing. Well maybe two. Fairway got a new store and the Foster Brothers had a lot of work.
Hey Matt did the EDC take credit for this joke too?