Eureka Housing for All rebuttal says City of Eureka report contains numerous errors

 

(Mike Munson Facebook)

(Michelle Costantine Facebook)

Posted below is a statement and press release issued by Eureka Housing for All Initiative’s rebuttal report to the City’s impact report. The initiative co-sponsors Michelle Costantine and Mike Munson quotes repeat the claim of  false misleading statements and loss of parking.  To see what is in the Eureka Housing for All report, you have to go to their website.

Eureka Housing for all press release:

The proponents of the “City of Eureka Housing for All and Downtown Vitality Initiative” have released a report on the impacts the Initiative would have if passed by Eureka voters next year. The report includes thorough explanations of how the Initiative improves upon the city’s current plan to remove over 600 downtown parking spaces to develop housing.

The report also highlights several falsities, misleading statements, omissions, and contradictions in the biased staff impact report released by the City of Eureka on November 1st.

“Our report shows how the Housing for All Initiative actually follows the General Plan and supports the construction of housing in several ways,” said Initiative co-sponsor Michelle Costantine. “There have been a lot of false and misleading statements circulating, including in the city’s report, so I’m glad Eureka residents have the opportunity to read the facts.”

In addition to containing numerous errors, the city-funded report fails to even acknowledge the hardships downtown business owners will face if parking is eliminated. The city contracted with outside consultant Pro Forma Advisors, LLC to “perform an economic and fiscal impact study” regarding the Initiative. Their report is severely flawed, relies mostly on assumptions for which there are no source citations, and fails to consider the economic impacts to downtown businesses if parking is eliminated, or the fiscal impacts to the city from loss of businesses, jobs, and tax revenue. 

“Downtown business owners know that the loss of parking will directly affect their businesses and have been telling the city this for the last several years,” said Initiative co-sponsor Mike Munson. “Despite our repeated requests for alternative solutions that would benefit everyone, the city chose to push this plan through. Now this report doesn’t even mention us or our very real concerns.”

“The city has a bad plan and now they’ve commissioned a taxpayer-funded bad report to support the bad plan,” said Costantine.

The full report can be found at EurekaHousingforAll2024.org.