I will Never Invest a Dime in this Town Again. (I like to hear James Cagney’s fabulous voice read this sentence in my head.)

According to Yahoo News, Mr. Marty Chernin has developed these buildings in downtown Sydney: Commerce Tower, Royal Bank building, justice centre, TD Bank building, 500 George Place, the former Joe's Warehouse restaurant and the L.H.C. Office Building.

I admit that I did not know where the Commerce Tower or the L.H.C are, so in case you are in the same boat, I present their images below. I threw in 500 George Street too. I must say that none of these buildings strikes me as nice to look at.

But this is not the point.

Commerce Tower 

500 George

L.H.C 

The point is, it seems to me, is that Mr. Chernin owns land on the Sydney waterfront. CBRM owns land, I understand, on either side of his land. When Cecil Clarke was our fearless leader, Mr. Chernin was given 18 months of exclusivity to come up with a development plan, including a library.

Council voted down Chernin’s plan (10-3) saying that the 32-million-dollar price tag for the library was too high.

Mr. Chernin’s 18-month exclusivity deal is over.

Council is going to open up the development bids to all, including Chernin, and then make a decision re the development. This waterfront land is owned by the taxpayer and it is important land. We should all care what happens there as it will define our downtown, to a large extent. (More on this in a future post.)

Here is the weirdness.

Mr. Chernin met with CBRM CAO Marie Walsh and the CBRM solicitor and came up with a deal that Ms. Walsh would present to Council. When Council and Mayor MacDougall voted to open the process up as it should be, transparently, Mr. Chernin felt that he was being treated unfairly.

Now, Mr. Chernin can present his plan to Council - for the CBRM-owned land, just as any other developer can. But he has decided not to, and to head to newspapers to declare our Council as unfriendly to business.

So, a shoutout to our Council for doing the right thing. Perhaps Mr. Chernin will come back to the table. That is his decision. I am sure that the best thing for CBRM would be if he did bring forward his ideas.

 But we did not vote for him or Marie Walsh or the CBRM solicitor. We voted for a Council and they must not be shut out of the process attached to decisions that are theirs to make.