On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 1:30 PM, <ngharter@aol.com> wrote:

City Council Meeting on Monday, May 7 at City Hall. If you are able come learn what the City Council, REDI and others want to do to Columbia and Columbia's central city.

Please if you read this and are on a Neighborhood List Serv in Columbia, post this emai to your List Serv, put it on your Facebook, and share it with as many people you know who might want to know what their City is planning on doing.

Below was put together by another individual:

This coming Monday, May 7th Columbia City Council will be meeting and discussing EEZ/Blight which REDI brought forth and which City Council established in February by a Resolution (illegal).. and did not establish by an Ordinance (which is required by Columbia's City Charter and then gives to the public meeting/s before whatever the Ordinance is, and then is voted on). There will also be discussions about a proposed TIF (Tax Increment Financing) in Ward 1: which is defined as a legal tool to force redevelopment to increase local political subdivisions' tax base..... or is regarded, as others believe, will mean a slow and steady destruction of existing neighborhoods (right now Odles new student apartments are encroaching on Ward 1's old and historic homes and on the Art District of which Orr St Studios is part of) and small commercial structures to be replaced with larger parcels, bigger buildings, and more intense uses such as high density residential, intensified commercial etc. Central Columbia is THE location of affordable single-family residential housing, for low and moderate income families to purchase homes, build some wealth, maintain and or establish neighborhoods and community. The homes in Ward 1 though small are historic. If this area of the city is destroyed, then neighbors, neighborhoods, communities and social net works that have lasted for decades will also be destroyed, and many people dislocated. There are those in this city who are talking about improving conditions of structural property in town, while wanting to change/destroy the poor and moderate community's neighborhoods for their own financial gain..... as was done back in the 1950s and 1960s to Columbia's downtown area when eminent domain took place.

Nancy Harter