Sorting out Mueller
Today’s Statesman has more on the SDS charter amendment’s potential impact on Mueller. The charges, counter-charges, and rebuttal arguments are bewildering.
No wonder: The SDS charter amendment is a complicated piece of legislation. Municipal finance and economic development law — the backdrop for the charter amendment — is extremely technical, the domain of highly specialized lawyers. The Mueller agreement (including exhibits) is over 1,000 pages, and spells out, in detail, complicated financing mechanisms for a period stretching over 15-20 years. No stranger to the Mueller MDA (myself included) could possibly evaluate all of the competing claims. I doubt the experts who drafted the Mueller MDA understand exactly how the charter amendment will impact Mueller. It will likely take years of litigation before anyone knows. (Since any citizen has standing to enforce the charter amendment, I’m confident that some malcontent will sue.)
Some of the claims outlined in the Statesman article, however, don’t make much sense, even to this non-expert:
