Winn Devlopment Makes Pitch To Keep MCC In Sibley Building
By: Vanessa Herring
Updated: February 8, 2013
"I will hope that Tuesday evening the county legislature will unanimously vote for the Kodak site," said Emeterio Otero, the Executive Dean of Monroe Community College's downtown Damon Campus.
Winn Development says the college's plan to move to the Kodak building will waste taxpayer dollars, "what we're really asking for is a little more transparency in this process, a delay in the vote for only 60 days will illustrate the 18 plus million dollars in savings at Sibley," explained Winn Development Managing Principal, Gilbert Winn.
18 million dollars is a lot of cash, but Otero says the numbers don't add up, "he suggests that it's on prevailing wage, I don't know about that," explained Otero, "the other piece with the proposal he believes that he's got a third party involved there, anybody that does business with any public monies you have to go out and put out an RFP."
Winn says college officials would know more about his plan if they had listened to it, "Winn Companies was denied both times to meet with the MCC board of trustees," explained Gilbert Winn, "I don't think people know that we were never allowed to meet with the trustees, so from the start we believe this process was goal oriented to leave Sibley, not with the taxpayers in mind and not with the students in mind."
Democrats are split. The mayor wants to slow the process down and consider the Sibley plan, "its certainly gone faster than I thought , yes, and faster than it needs to go," said Mayor Richards, "no one is beating down the door to take those buildings off of Kodak's hands and one of the real issues I'm concerned about now, and growing more concerned about all the time, is exactly what are we getting ourselves into out there."
County legislator John Lightfoot will cast his vote for Kodak, "I'm in favor of what's out there right now which is pretty much Kodak," said Lightfoot.
Monroe Community College's lease at the Sibley Building will expire in four years. Winn says that if the college moves to Kodak he doesn't believe he'll have a problem filling the space in the renovated building.
