Larry Bender Quotations

Last night (Friday), a lot of us came out on the strip in front of the union and talked about it. We talked about how we weren't going to let it affect the year.

We are actively seeking developers to come down here. Every obstacle, every impediment, every challenge we can eliminate for that developer the more likely he'll come down to take a look at what we consider strong development opportunities downtown.

We don't know what is out there. We don't have any specific sites and don't know what needs to be cleaned. That's why we are doing the assessment.

When we talk about the entire area being blighted we don't mean every parcel within that area. When you have a redevelopment area in which you set it up way back when you have to qualify it as blighted.

By identifying those contaminants, we take out those question marks. Sometimes people put off coming downtown and assembling land because of the concern over contaminants. We are going to make it easier to attract developers downtown.