By Jim Sack

The controversial toll bridge to the Embassy has a couple new wrinkles. First, it seems the city may well bow to public pressure to open the sky bridge so we rabble may enjoy what we have paid for. Secondly, the city has held on to this little secret for a year or more. Wonder why?

To set the scene, part of the even more controversial Harrison Square plan involved a sky bridge from the Embassy to the new hotel. Said sky bridge would thus link the parking garage on Calhoun and Washington to the Hilton to the Embassy to the Marriott to the stadium. Nice. In bad weather a conventioneer or hotel guest could travel from building to building without bundling against the cold or rain. As a regular old citizen I also had dreams of traveling around the downtown enjoying the second floor views of our lovely little city, spared from the weather like a squirrel in the tree tops.

Then, last week, an angry city council president Tom Smith let the cat out of the bag. To his credit he blew the whistle on a part of the deal that he felt was unfair, namely, that we mere citizens would not be allowed to use the sky bridge (which we are paying for) from the Embassy (our Embassy) to the new Marriott (which we are subsidizing). Only hotel guests would be allowed on the million dollar passage you paid for. Smith figured, rightly, that the community would not accept that.

The City administration responded. Greg Leatherman, city official, rationalized that hotel security would be compromised if just anyone (read: we rabble) could enter the building. He said the Marriott needed to limit access to their building. Leatherman, it seems, wears two hats, one when drawing a city paycheck and the other when he speaks on behalf of Marriott or Hard Ball Capital.

Later, it became clearer that the real reason was money: Marriott had designed the entry point into the hotel with only guests in mind: a small, compact, hole in the wall through which one or two persons at a time could pass. To make the entryway into a more public space to handle more foot traffic (we rabble) additional space would be needed. Sellable rooms would have to be sacrificed for a lobby and wider gateway. The Marriott would lose some four or five rooms in the re-engineering. It was simply a question of money. To cover their greed they played the “security” card. To the Marriott people using your money to pay for a bridge was quite acceptable while letting you use what you had paid for was not.

Sources tell me that Greg Leatherman informed other city employees of the little problem long ago, but chose not to make it public knowledge. Apparently, Greg and his fellow leaders in this administration felt it was better not mentioned, that it would go away or not be noticed, or no one would complain. Per his thinking, now one would raise much of a fuss. Thanks to Smith the fuss has been raised and you will have access to what you paid for.

I understand that a “come to Jesus” meeting has been held with city officials and representatives of various foundations and other groups in the city and the Marriott will work out a solution that will allow we mere rabble to use the sky bridge during the better part of the day and evening. You will be able to use it to walk from the Hilton parking garage all the way to Tin Cap stadium to watch a game, and then come back to the Hilton for a night of merriment.

There is a greater question: is this administration trying hard to be a one-term administration. Given their self-inflicted embarrassments on gambling, on Calhoun Street and on the Harrison Square condos, one has to question to whom this administration listens and for whom it works.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 10:10 am and is filed under City & County Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.