After my blog post, Statesman joins the action

Today I woke up to every man’s nightmare: I had been robbed. I walked out into the living room of my house, opened the front door, and there was the evidence right before me. Looking down at the rolled up Idaho Statesman sitting there on my porch I could see the headline, front-page above the fold: “MERIDIAN TAKES A SWING AT THE BOISE HAWKS.”

If you scroll down a bit, you’ll note that I posted on that very subject two days ago. The story stemmed from a public meeting of the Meridian Development Corporation where the Boise Hawks unveiled a survey showing huge public support for a new Hawks Stadium, in Meridian. So why would I allege being robbed by Joe Estrella if this is all public information?

At beer and blog a couple weeks ago, this subject came up between Jess Flynn and I. Jess Flynn represents the MDC and does a bang up job. She mentioned that Meridian and MDC were hoping to attract the Hawks there. I noted that the City of Boise in a design Charette almost three years ago had drawn Hawks Stadium into its 30th street Master Plan. I even pulled the plan up on my iPhone and showed it to Jess.

So - Jess and a couple other people were live tweeting that MDC meeting, and sent links to the Hawks presentation. Here’s one of them from Jess:

So - the 30th Street Master Plan never once came up at the MDC meeting - and Joe Estrella just happened to call the City of Boise about it? Not likely.

It’s especially not likely since according to my search of the Statesman archives, the Statesman has never once covered the 30th Street Master plan.

So I called Joe on it, and I copied his boss. Here’s his explanation:

Chris,

Just wanted you to know that the source for my story was somebody who knows Todd Rahr personally and had spoken to him about the situation.

The 30th Street Plan information came from my conversation with Boise officials who went into great detail, including mentioning that the stadium could be built at another site like the Boise Bench.

And as I’m sure you noticed, my story centered on Meridian’s request for an exclusive arrangement between the two parties in exchange for funding the feasibility study. The sources for that information were an MDC and city official.

I replied to Joe:

Joe: in my view that is a weak explanation for how the story came about. In the first place there is no reason for you to call Boise officials to talk about the Hawks since the Hawks reside on County property in the city of Garden City - you had to have been prompted to call John and ask him specifically about 30th street. Secondly, if you are unaware of the social media conversations that were swirling around this issue for two days that speaks as poorly for you as does the more likely case that you just simply borrowed my analysis and passed it off as your own.

Whatever the case, the Statesman has a long way to go in the social media/new media realm. Your organization simply treats the new social media channels as broadcast channels, and is the ONLY media outlet in the Valley that does so.

I remain unconvinced by Joe’s explanation; I have not yet heard from Vicki Gowler. I think the case is clear. This story emanated from my conversations with Jess Flynn (also recounted on her blog), appeared on my blog two days ago, then magically appeared on the front page of the Statesman.

Will Boise Lose Hawks Stadium?

There’s been a lot of hullabaloo surrounding Hawks stadium recently, mostly coming from Meridian. I have to hand it to Mayor DeWeerd and the Meridian Development Corporation: they have a vision, and a mission and they are going after it.

This morning the Boise Hawks unveiled a survey that showed a vast majority (75%+) of the 300 people surveyed, favored construction of a new multi-purpose sports facility somewhere in the Valley. It turns out that a plurality of people also identified MERIDIAN as the favored location for a new sports facility. I am guessing that this will have a few people at the City of Boise upset.

In January 2007, a design charrette for the 30th District Master Plan in Boise, revealed that the 200 people in attendance hoped that a new Hawks stadium would be built in downtown Boise. The photo below appears on page 185 of the 30th Street Master Plan, available on the City’s website.

Hawks Stadium envisioned as part of the 30th Street Neighborhood

So what say you, City of Boise officials? Are you working up a deal to make the stadium a centerpiece of a new 30th Street Neighborhood? The implementation plan for 30th Street says that within 1-3 years Boise City and CCDC will:

Identify where land assembly, land acquisition and/or development partnerships would help implement the development concept for each subdistrict. Initiate conversations with property owners to determine their level of interest in selling property, land assembly and/or development.

Where are we on this project? Granted the plan only went forward in June 2009, but with Meridian breathing down your necks, it might be time to kick this project into high gear - unless you really like the sound of “MERIDIAN HAWKS.”