They.Want.Your.Money.

Do the Port Authority and Laura Brunner

give a damn about the good of the community? 

Absolutely not.

The drama of the last 48 hours over the Parking Plot, with City administration and the Port Authority lying, cheating and stealing to get what they want, might give the hundreds of referendum circulators and tens of thousands of petitions signers hope that the 50-year plundering of the taxpayers would be stopped.

Forget it.

Because written between the lines of the public statements of Laura Brunner, Roxanne Qualls and Milton Dohoney is: We want your money, we intend to get your money, and we will do anything we need in order to get your money. Nothing will stop us from getting your money.

Now, their strategy is to politically make the case as politically palatable as possible.  They talk out of both sides of their mouths: "it's a done deal."  "There is no reason left to oppose this in as much as the lease is already signed."  Then in the next breath, they say "but we can still amend the lease."  This is all designed to buy them time to defuse public anger over the plan, and implement it at a later date with less opposition or more support.

So, their strategy is to gauge the political temperature of the matter between now and Labor Day, figure out the formulation that will best sell to the electorate, develop some third party consultant report to endorse the concept, and then sign it anyway, no matter what.  Nothing will stop that.  Nothing.

The long and short of it is that They. Want. Your. Money. 

Period and end of story.

You, the citizenry, are screwed and have never been at the table.  You never had a chance.