This is unbelievable. Mr. Arcuri announces that Utica will receive a HUD grant for over $4.2 million . . . in spite of $Millions of HUD monies having allegedly been misspent by Gro-West. Obviously corruption is not a problem for Mr. Arcuri nor for HUD -- as long as the political connections are correct -- otherwise why is more money being doled out?
Now the "Affordable Housing" requirements of the new Utica Master Plan suddenly make sense. They're the excuse to keep the pipeline of corruption flowing with federal taxpayers' money.
All the more reason why State officials need to be brought in to investigate the situation . . . but then again, do you really think Attorney General Andrew Cuomo wants to make his Utica and Washington friends look bad?
3 comments:
Utica is but a tiny part of the national waste. None of these programs and projects undergo a cost/benefit analysis. Cities such as Utica have been receiving HUD grants for god knows how long and they keep sliding downhill.The grant/machine system is simply political vehicle set up for political gain and credit. Look at the infamouse HOPE whatever it was huge Boehlert delivered grant. Did it make even a little dent in Cornhill? What did we get for the millions spent, a few below market houses? Do we even know if they are now occupied? One could go on and on but the bottom line is clear; the programs are riddled with lack of sense,purpose, waste and political job creation. HUD is a national scandal and requires major rethinking and reform.
Strike, Utica is an “entitlement city” base on population all US city with a population (over 50,000, I think) share in the pot of CBDG the money which comes every year.
This is a none annocoument by Arcuri he did absolutely nothing to get the money.
Also over 1 mil of this 4 mil pot goes to pay for Hotel Utica and Loreto’s default on 108 loans which was back by the entitlement monies, a lot of it goes to pay for the employees of UED.
If they did not get this money, they would have to self found all planning and zoning functions in the city and repay the defaults back from the general fund.
HUD operates grant programs above and beyond the CDBG program. The monies which are the subject of these comments are not from the entitlement fund.
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