Mayor Duggan's State of the City Address-Packard Plant Plans
I'd like to remind Mayor Duggan that the Packard Plant has not "abandoned since 1958". Studebaker-Packard Corporation ceased car production there in September of 1954, but used portions of the building until the fall of 1956. The Utica-Bend Corporation operated the plant after that, selling the plant to private owners in 1957, when it became a storage facility and light manufacturing/distribution center with over 100 individual tenants. I might also remind Mayor Duggan that it remained that way until 1999, when his fellow mayor Archer's administration conspired with a crooked real estate speculator to seize the plant complex from its rightful owner for back taxes, to deny that owner his due process to make good on delinquent taxes, and posted officers from the Police Department's gang squad at the main entrance to the plant 24/7/365 for a year and a half solely to deny that owner re-entry should he dare to leave the premises. He didn't. The crooked real estate speculator intended on using the city's administration and paid-off individuals in the State Government to secure EPA superfund [[mega) dollars to pay his son's Demolition Company [[a gem of a company) to demolish the complex, giving said speculator 64 contiguous acres with rail and freeway access. His honor might remember that this demolition company started demolition on buildings in the complex without first securing permission from the true owner's lienholder. Mayor Duggan might also remember that rampant scrapping and vandalism was ignored by the Gang Squad policemen stationed there around the clock in hopes that it would make the demolition inevitable. That scrapping and vandalism continued with no effort to curtail it by the police department. Scrappers started fires to release more steel from the concrete-the fire department let it burn. Mayor Mike may also recall that the courts finally ruled that the city was wrong in their seizure of the complex and returned ownership of the now-ruined structure to its owners. Fernando Palazuelo talked a good ballgame about renovation, but couldn't convince enough other people to put their money in. He did clean up the massive amounts of debris left behind by the scrappers and vandals and secured the property, so maybe you shouldn't rag on him quite so much. It's your mess Mike. Your city government made it. Now clean it up.
