The District 7 Candidates on Grantville

Published: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 1:54 PM PDT

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I gave the City Council candidates in District 7 a call to get their take on Grantville. (Here's a breakdown of the District 7 race from my colleague, David Washburn.)

Marti Emerald said she supports the Grantville Action Group, the group of some of Grantville's business and property owners who oppose the designation of the community as a redevelopment area. She said she sides with the small business owners there who fear being pushed out in favor of the new vision for the community under redevelopment.

"I'm not a supporter of it," she said. "If this is what I inherit, I think we really have to be careful with how we proceed with redevelopment. I think we've all seen redevelopment that is basically scraping communities and gentrifying, and I want to make sure that's not done here."

April Boling said she believes Grantville will redevelop whether it's a redevelopment project area --"Redevelopment, capital R," she calls it -- or not. She supports the creation of a master plan for Grantville and the creation of the redevelopment area. Her chief reason: reinvesting the tax increment generated there to take care of the big infrastructure needs in Grantville, like aligning Mission Gorge Road with Interstate 8.

Such projects are too big to require individual private developers to cover them in their development plans, she said.

"If we do case-by-case redevelopment, we'll end up with a mess like they have in Mission Valley," she said.

She contrasted her support of redevelopment with the Council Jim Madaffer's leadership in the effort.

"I am not planning to lead any charge," Boling said.

Both candidates expressed disappointment with the way the settlement came down to send $31.4 million dollars of Grantville money downtown.