FARGO, N.D. – The Fargo Convention Center Committee hit a roadblock Thursday afternoon in their quest to send a recommendation to the Fargo City Commission.
“This is not a good look,” Convention Center Committee leader Charley Johnson said. “It grieves me to say this is not a good look for us or the City.”
It is in relation to a new interest rate that was shared with one of the finalists by Finance Director Susan Thompson – which then led to the firm sending a ‘slimmed down proposal’ for the FargoDome project to Mayor Tim Mahoney.
Thompson said she spoke to the FargoDome about the new interest rate ‘because I’ve talked to them about a lot of things.’
She said the rate was shared with the Committee.
“We didn’t actually make a change,” Thompson said. “The only reason that we started looking at the bond cost is when I was reading the Brewhalla proposal, I noticed we went from 6.25 to 5.”
“This is about as last-minute an effort as I can envision, and I am mystified again as to why it might not have been passed on to the Committee when it came in,” Johnson said. “ Both of those developments seem to be about as far away from what I think of as transparency that everybody loves as possible.”
He said he felt ‘obligated’ to reach out to the other developers to see how the new funding model ‘might change their pro forma budgets or the construction program.’
“I asked them to send their best summary of that info by close of business today so we can share it in advance of the final scoring,” Johnson said.
The committee still hopes to forward a recommendation for the City Commission to act on at their regular meeting Monday.
