Jeffrey Mansion Master Plan

During the mayoral race, the question of alcohol at Jeffrey Mansion came up repeatedly. You might be forgiven if you were under the impression that allowing alcohol was the biggest change on the table.

Not by a long shot.

After a year and a half, including two meetings with community input, the Jeffrey Mansion Commission will be presenting a Master Plan Proposal to the City Council at Tuesday's 7pm meeting. My thanks to the reader who sent me a copy of the proposal, which is also available on Bexley's website. Having read the proposal, but not followed its evolution very closely, a few things pop out:

1) The plan projects yearly expenses that are, down to the dollar, exactly the same as the projected yearly revenues: $788,550. What are the odds? I'm hoping that the revenues were estimated first, and expenses capped at projected revenues, but this is still a little scary.

2) The report goes out of its way to pre-emptively deal with the objections presented by the dissenting commission member (Ann Brennan) at the end of the report. With only the proposal as a guide, I have to say that the parking reconfiguration seems to be adequately sensitive to the need to retain natural features in the park. I wouldn't mind hearing from folks who think the case hasn't been made.

3) The plan absolutely depends on private sector donations. As is noted:

Note: The City will be responsible for payment of the general obligation debt as it comes due, thus, if fundraising or other planned sources of revenue ultimately prove insufficient to pay the debt, the City will be liable to make up the shortfall.

On the one hand, I would never bet against the generosity of Bexleyites. On the other hand, we're looking at a possible (probable) recession creating more demand and less supply for philanthropical cash. It might be nice to see some aggressive benchmarks regarding pledged donations that would need to be met prior to issuing bonds.

Other than that, it looks impressive to me.