Synopsis of the "Done Deal" in Beaverdale |
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FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE, below is posted a concise synopsis--from court transcript--of what happened in the community of Beaverdale in Des Moines, Iowa beginning in 2005--despite the fact that Rice Field had been designated as a park by the school board:
In 2005 some coincidences occurred which alarmed some of the members of the community. The school board member Connie Boesen argued to the school board that it was really in the best interest of the schools to sell the Rice site, and she successfully moved the school board to sell Rice Field.
Serendipitously, Connie Boesen’s extended family members – Tom Boesen, Edward Boesen, Frank Boesen, and Bob Boesen --- were tossing around an idea to develop Rice Field, if it just ever happened to come up for sale. As Councilman Coleman had indicated at the first hearing in march of 2007 he was aware of the Boesens’ designs well before the drawings ever came to fruition.
Mr. Tom Boesen formed an organization called the BBC ostensibly to encourage the mining of government funds to improve the commercial district, the structures in the community district, particularly the facades, some of which he owned. And some very talented up - and – rising business people joined him, and some of them ran as slate to help lead the BNA.
The BNA subsequently became active in promoting the revitalization of the commercial node, and the BBC arranged a neighborhood meeting and advertised it as a presentation for the remodeling of the core business district. But when interested people arrived at the meeting, the were asked to vote a on a series of proposals for the development of Rice Field.
The vote was overwhelmingly to leave it alone. They took a second vote, and it was overwhelmingly to have an enhanced park. Finally, the attendees were directed to vote for one of the developments only, and they voted for the Boesen development plan.
The vote was necessary because the City of Des Moines had employed a consulting firm, RDG, to assess Beaverdale’s needs. And they had polled the community scientifically on the community’s attitude towards Rice Field. And 67 percent of the scientific poll indicated that they would want the field left alone, but 75 percent said that they would concede to, if not their first choice, their second choice to having an enhanced community gathering area.
So with those types of statistics, it was necessary for a developer to have some sort of counter to the neighborhood’s perspective.
A committee was appointed by the school board to - - or the school board decided to issue an RFP. They got into the zoning business, essentially by issuing an RFP, a request for proposal, instead of a pure sale of the property.
They asked for development plans and they appointed a committee to assess the development plans and make a recommendation to the school board.
The development - - the committee was made up of BBC participants and the new leadership of the BNA.
To no one’s surprise, Boesens’ proposal was selected, and the property was sold to Boesens, notwithstanding the fact that another developer, actually, the principal of the developer in the present case, had made a bid some over $100,000 more than the Boesen bid.
The community opposition arose. A lawsuit was filed alleging that school board’s action was violative of the open meetings law for two reasons: One, that the committee met in private and that the school board, when the issue came up for their decision, had changed the site of their meeting by placing a note maybe an hour before the meeting on the boardroom door. And so the people who showed up at the boardroom ended up going to Cassidy, I think it is. The meeting was Cassidy Elementary, and by the time they arrived, the topic had been completed, and they put no input into the process.
The district court and the court of appeals held that the open meetings’ law did not apply to legislative action. It only applied to executive action, and basically they said period, we will stop there, and, therefore the community lost.
The question of whether the school board acts in all three capacities –visual capacity, legislative capacity, and an executive capacity – was not either addressed by the Court or, actually, it was not addressed by counsel.
At any rate, by 2008 that lawsuit had completed, and the process to develop Rice Field continued.
Members of the community circulated a petition, gathered over a thousand signatures, which was submitted to the City of Des Moines, urging that the City – that the field not be developed. That was entered in the first PUD proceedings.
Fortunately, for the Boesens, Mr. Coleman was city councilman, and the efforts to change the zoning from Rice Field, which was originally R-160, single-family residence to PUD mixed-use received a favorable reception by the school board.
Citizens actually prevailed before the Plan and Zone commission - - zoning commission, arguing that PUD was - - the original PUD was not in character with the surrounding areas.
The arguments, as exactly submitted, are shown in Exhibit No. 13, which is the - - which were the arguments of the Petitioners and others submitted by their council at the march 2007 hearing. It was basically a slide presentation with talking points.
The developer did not receive enough votes to carry the recommendation of the plan and zoning commission. They felt that the development did not match the character of the neighborhood, and so it proceeded to the city council without the plan and zoning recommendation.
See more of the opening arguments from the Trial on Zoning at Rice Field at the tab "Litigation".
In 2005 some coincidences occurred which alarmed some of the members of the community. The school board member Connie Boesen argued to the school board that it was really in the best interest of the schools to sell the Rice site, and she successfully moved the school board to sell Rice Field.
Serendipitously, Connie Boesen’s extended family members – Tom Boesen, Edward Boesen, Frank Boesen, and Bob Boesen --- were tossing around an idea to develop Rice Field, if it just ever happened to come up for sale. As Councilman Coleman had indicated at the first hearing in march of 2007 he was aware of the Boesens’ designs well before the drawings ever came to fruition.
Mr. Tom Boesen formed an organization called the BBC ostensibly to encourage the mining of government funds to improve the commercial district, the structures in the community district, particularly the facades, some of which he owned. And some very talented up - and – rising business people joined him, and some of them ran as slate to help lead the BNA.
The BNA subsequently became active in promoting the revitalization of the commercial node, and the BBC arranged a neighborhood meeting and advertised it as a presentation for the remodeling of the core business district. But when interested people arrived at the meeting, the were asked to vote a on a series of proposals for the development of Rice Field.
The vote was overwhelmingly to leave it alone. They took a second vote, and it was overwhelmingly to have an enhanced park. Finally, the attendees were directed to vote for one of the developments only, and they voted for the Boesen development plan.
The vote was necessary because the City of Des Moines had employed a consulting firm, RDG, to assess Beaverdale’s needs. And they had polled the community scientifically on the community’s attitude towards Rice Field. And 67 percent of the scientific poll indicated that they would want the field left alone, but 75 percent said that they would concede to, if not their first choice, their second choice to having an enhanced community gathering area.
So with those types of statistics, it was necessary for a developer to have some sort of counter to the neighborhood’s perspective.
A committee was appointed by the school board to - - or the school board decided to issue an RFP. They got into the zoning business, essentially by issuing an RFP, a request for proposal, instead of a pure sale of the property.
They asked for development plans and they appointed a committee to assess the development plans and make a recommendation to the school board.
The development - - the committee was made up of BBC participants and the new leadership of the BNA.
To no one’s surprise, Boesens’ proposal was selected, and the property was sold to Boesens, notwithstanding the fact that another developer, actually, the principal of the developer in the present case, had made a bid some over $100,000 more than the Boesen bid.
The community opposition arose. A lawsuit was filed alleging that school board’s action was violative of the open meetings law for two reasons: One, that the committee met in private and that the school board, when the issue came up for their decision, had changed the site of their meeting by placing a note maybe an hour before the meeting on the boardroom door. And so the people who showed up at the boardroom ended up going to Cassidy, I think it is. The meeting was Cassidy Elementary, and by the time they arrived, the topic had been completed, and they put no input into the process.
The district court and the court of appeals held that the open meetings’ law did not apply to legislative action. It only applied to executive action, and basically they said period, we will stop there, and, therefore the community lost.
The question of whether the school board acts in all three capacities –visual capacity, legislative capacity, and an executive capacity – was not either addressed by the Court or, actually, it was not addressed by counsel.
At any rate, by 2008 that lawsuit had completed, and the process to develop Rice Field continued.
Members of the community circulated a petition, gathered over a thousand signatures, which was submitted to the City of Des Moines, urging that the City – that the field not be developed. That was entered in the first PUD proceedings.
Fortunately, for the Boesens, Mr. Coleman was city councilman, and the efforts to change the zoning from Rice Field, which was originally R-160, single-family residence to PUD mixed-use received a favorable reception by the school board.
Citizens actually prevailed before the Plan and Zone commission - - zoning commission, arguing that PUD was - - the original PUD was not in character with the surrounding areas.
The arguments, as exactly submitted, are shown in Exhibit No. 13, which is the - - which were the arguments of the Petitioners and others submitted by their council at the march 2007 hearing. It was basically a slide presentation with talking points.
The developer did not receive enough votes to carry the recommendation of the plan and zoning commission. They felt that the development did not match the character of the neighborhood, and so it proceeded to the city council without the plan and zoning recommendation.
See more of the opening arguments from the Trial on Zoning at Rice Field at the tab "Litigation".