Time to clean up the mess.
It is time to move on. Bucyrus is a wonderful community. We have an attractive downtown and great community organizations that do good things in a lot of different directions.
The actions and conduct of our City Council president are an embarrassment to all who live in this community. It is all about him and his need for control and power. Let me tell you what kind of a community member he is and what he did to our fine citizens.
A little over 2 years ago a group of us started working on this, our Bicentennial year, and the celebration of that event. Sue and Denny Norton, decedents of the founders of Bucyrus, started things off with a significant donation to get our fund-raising effort a kick start. Other businesses have continued to grow that fund.
We made a decision from the get-go that we wanted to spend most of the money on legacy projects that would be around for many years to come. One of the ideas was to clean up the Freddies Restaurant property and old ice plant area as it was the biggest eyesore in the downtown area. Our now City Council president, who was running for office at that time, got wind of the idea.
He quickly made an offer and bought the Freddie Restaurant property out from under us for $12,500.00. He then ultimately offered it to sell it to the Bicentennial Commission for $50,000.00! The problem is that the land is in a floodplain. FEMA will not allow new buildings to be constructed on that land. If a building were to be constructed, it would have to be on 6-foot stilts! A park is an ideal and best use of that land.
Our good citizen, Tim Lutz, who graciously sold the ice plant property to Norton Bicentennial Inc. (a non-profit created to develop the Norton Bicentennial Park) for what he paid when he bought that property. He was ultimately able to purchase the old Freddies Restaurant property for $30,000.00 from our Council president. Tim was then gracious enough to sell the Freddie property to Norton Bicentennial Inc. for the same amount. Hats off to Tim, there is a real community member!
Meanwhile, our now Council president not only stuck it to our good community and the Bicentennial donors to the tune of $17,500.00 profit he personally made. He made another $5000.00 on an offer from an out-of-town developer on a non-refundable down payment on that same property. The developer did not know you could not build on the property until he did his due diligence. Needless to say, the developer lost his down payment. Talk about being deceptive when listing the property.
That says all you need to know about who our Council president cares about, himself. Bucyrus City Council members should NOT override the mayor’s veto. Mayor Reser is correct on all accounts on why he vetoed the legislation.
Because of one person’s action, we have lost a good City Council clerk. It looks like we are lucky enough to be able to fill that position with a qualified applicant. That person works for the city council on behalf of the members of council, not the Council president.
In addition, Bucyrus City Council also needs to use their power and have the courage to take the action necessary to rid our city of the embarrassment we have endured the last 18 months. All because of one person’s need for power and control and it is NOT the mayor!
Sincerely,
Fred Fischer