Greater City ProvidenceThe Route 195 Redevelopment District Commission created by the General Assembly last year was given
$250 millionfor economic development planning. Now the seven-member commission of volunteers says it needs more money to hire an executive director to help execute the group’s five months of planning.
Seems the Commission actually borrowed $250k from the EDC, not was given $250 million by the state.
There has to be a typo somewhere in that sentence. I can’t fathom how you could burn through $250 million on planning alone, it literally seems impossible to do. If that was the case, it would be the greatest example of beuracratic waste in state history. I’m sure there are a dozen of us that would get together to do this for free and would have nailed it by now.
Wait. What? They blew through 250 million dollars? That’s actual dollars? How did they do that? They haven’t actually accomplished anything…Is that number correct?
I can’t understand that either, it has to be wrong. I read it and just posted without comment to see if others would understand it the same way I did.
I sent an email to WPRI for clarification.
PBN: I-195 commission borrows $250K for planning
Well that makes much more sense, I can see the commission burning through $250k in an afternoon. There was a paid consultant attending a City Plan Commission meeting I was at (where no testimony was required and the commission accepts written testimony anyway).
I still stand by the claim that asmall group of us could have finished this by now, done a better job than will likely end up being done, and wouldn’t have burned through $250k.