Eric You chided me last week to back up my assessment that Bonner Report was aspirational at best. I accepted your challenge and posted elsewhere a view that is hard to square with the rosy picture you are painting. Your talking points ARE the aspirations that are in the report, but only, and it's a big IF, only if everything breaks favorably.
Let me be clear, I do kinda like the library as envisioned. But I don't like the process that is taking place to advance it.
The Bonner Report is solid and full of cautious optimism, but it's not a green light.
The joined at the hip (see what I did there?) of AADL and City Council is the problem, not the answer.
To my way of thinking, our current City Council is comprised of competent, but mediocre officials who do not have a good record to stand on.
They are joined by a supporting cast of felonious funders and labor union interests who would like consideration when new development occurs in our city.
Thus they resort to gaming our antiquated election laws with chicanery to put these measures on an August ballot so that they can eek out a plurality of the electorate that will be assuredly smaller than the general election plurality that supported Prop A in 2018.
Folks who are in favor of Props A and B in 2025 seem to be saying that this situation rights a wrong. My response to that is two wrongs do not make a right.
I don't want the library lot to remain a concrete jungle for perpetuity. I just don't want the current city council to be pulling the strings and calling the shots. They have not earned our trust on the matter.
Brian, your vision of this “once-in-a-generation opportunity” reads with all the grandiosity and engineered optimism of a H.G. Wells character—specifically, Dr. Moreau.
Like Moreau, you summon noble ideals: literacy, innovation, civic engagement. But then, with surgical precision, you begin stitching them into a complex hybrid—a library-plaza-housing-startup-cultural node that promises equity, transit access, and democratic renewal. It walks like progress, talks like inclusion… but beneath the surface, one wonders what unintended instincts may emerge once the experiment begins breathing on its own.
Moreau, too, believed he was building something better for future generations. And like him, you appear utterly convinced that public ownership, once entangled in ground leases, will somehow remain public in spirit. That mixed-income developments will resist gravity. That civic architecture alone can redeem a broken housing market.
I admire the ambition. But forgive me if I approach the operating table with caution.
Open Letter to Eric Ivancich
Eric You chided me last week to back up my assessment that Bonner Report was aspirational at best. I accepted your challenge and posted elsewhere a view that is hard to square with the rosy picture you are painting. Your talking points ARE the aspirations that are in the report, but only, and it's a big IF, only if everything breaks favorably.
Let me be clear, I do kinda like the library as envisioned. But I don't like the process that is taking place to advance it.
The Bonner Report is solid and full of cautious optimism, but it's not a green light.
The joined at the hip (see what I did there?) of AADL and City Council is the problem, not the answer.
To my way of thinking, our current City Council is comprised of competent, but mediocre officials who do not have a good record to stand on.
They are joined by a supporting cast of felonious funders and labor union interests who would like consideration when new development occurs in our city.
Thus they resort to gaming our antiquated election laws with chicanery to put these measures on an August ballot so that they can eek out a plurality of the electorate that will be assuredly smaller than the general election plurality that supported Prop A in 2018.
Folks who are in favor of Props A and B in 2025 seem to be saying that this situation rights a wrong. My response to that is two wrongs do not make a right.
I don't want the library lot to remain a concrete jungle for perpetuity. I just don't want the current city council to be pulling the strings and calling the shots. They have not earned our trust on the matter.
Open letter to Brian Chambers
Brian, your vision of this “once-in-a-generation opportunity” reads with all the grandiosity and engineered optimism of a H.G. Wells character—specifically, Dr. Moreau.
Like Moreau, you summon noble ideals: literacy, innovation, civic engagement. But then, with surgical precision, you begin stitching them into a complex hybrid—a library-plaza-housing-startup-cultural node that promises equity, transit access, and democratic renewal. It walks like progress, talks like inclusion… but beneath the surface, one wonders what unintended instincts may emerge once the experiment begins breathing on its own.
Moreau, too, believed he was building something better for future generations. And like him, you appear utterly convinced that public ownership, once entangled in ground leases, will somehow remain public in spirit. That mixed-income developments will resist gravity. That civic architecture alone can redeem a broken housing market.
I admire the ambition. But forgive me if I approach the operating table with caution.
Thanks for this.
Thank you, Dan, for this excellent portrayal. I'll be sharing it. Bravo!!