Dear Editor:
Glaringly absent from the mayor’s highly forgettable “State of the City – 2018” sermon was any reference to the Hotel Carmichael.
This up-scale, chic, luxury, expensive, gaudy, unnecessary brainstorm of the Progressive spenders in City Hall was touted a year ago in a speech and a YouTube video.
This year, nada. You’ll recall the civic puff piece on video a year ago saying, “You’ll soon be able to sip drinks at the Feinstein Supper Club at the boutique hotel.” (The video has been seen by 2,800 people, or an average 7.7 persons per day since going viral.)
I mulled that over in deference to the mulled (heated, spiced) wine shack going at the hotel’s neighboring Christkindlmarkt. I mulled that over as I sipped mulled coffee at the Ronald McDonald Supper Club on Carmel Drive. Where’s the Hotel Carmichael and the Feinstein Supper Club?
And it hit me. They’re AWOL. Both the city and the developed are or at least were absent without loans.
Beginning in mid-year last year the city and a pet developer began looking for $40 million outside the usual municipal bond channels.
It took the developer almost a year to pony up its $22 million. Last word was that the city was close to cashing in $10 million and $8 million bonds backed by income from the hotel and, failing that, local income taxes and a special benefit tax on property within the city limits.
Have no fear. Sipping time is coming.
We can welcome back the prodigal spenders from their AWOL.
(Oh, and remember, Michael is no kin to U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein.)
Bill Shaffer
Carmel