Lately, I have seen a lot of "Not this MAPS" signs around town. Considering how awesome the first MAPS was for the city and what great things MAPS for Kids did for the public school system, I wondered why this MAPS initiative is being viewed with such strident opposition.
To get some information, I visited the "Not this MAPS" facebook group, and this was the gist of the argument:
Out of 3/4 of a BILLION dollars not one dime is for creating jobs, public schools, roads, bridges, police or fireman. Instead they want to make a downtown waterpark, or a $400 million downtown convention center.
Correct me if I am wrong, but when you spend $400 million to build something, someone is going to be working on the project. Is there some stipulation in the wording of the initiative that demands that all work be done by out of state robots? Or, perhaps, some technology that creates state of the art buildings immaculately...and by "immaculate" I'm referring to its use with "conception" and not referring to the beauty, although I would expect that the new convention center would have that, too.
If past initiatives are any indication, the money will create a lot of jobs in this community. Architecture and engineering for things like the Ford Center have been done by firms in this city, and the construction boasts the same. These firms take the contracts for which they win the bidding and put people to work in this metropolitan area with good wage paying jobs.