"No taxpayers funds will be used"

[shinblind]

Has the city ever explained how they intend to make up the roughly $100,000 shortfall that the West End Scheme is forecast to cost?

They continue to downscale the project because of cost overruns.

Do they believe that kayak rentals will make up the difference?

That is a lot of kayak rentals. About 3 an hour for a 16 hour day for a 180 day season, taking off some time for overhead, bad weather etc.

Not sure how the city plans to pay for the phase 1 construction of the West End Scheme.

Hey maybe the city will consider taxpayers money not to "really" be a loan much like the money supplied for training the police cadet.

[XLFD]

Good title, shinblind, if you were not fully aware, three city council meetings effectively gave us that line and then further explained the evolving shortfall contradicting that statement, as noted in the minutes:  

10-22-2018:  Interim City Manager Brock updated everyone on the West End of Ludington Avenue which has not begun as the bids came in higher than what money has been raised so far. It was noted that the City will not be using any of its own money on this project. 

11-19-2018 COW meeting:  Currently, there are funds raised to pay for this project; however, two major contributors intend to pay their contributions over a five-year period. It was noted that there would not be any taxpayer money going into this project. The budget reflects the construction to take place in 2019 and then contributions to come in over five years to pay for this project. The General Fund will float this project until all contributions are received.

12-10-2018:  The West End of Ludington Avenue project will not include any general tax dollars except that for two to three years the City will be floating some of the grants. When the grant fund come in, they will replace these funds in the General Fund.

However, p. 8 of the Grant application manual says:

'Match commitments must be... available for expenditure in the grant project period'.  The grant project period is at most two years, so if we start immediately, those commitments need to be here at the beginning of 2021 (p. 55):

The City will not be only floating the loans, they cannot officially accept money for the project after the two years, so I see some loan forgiveness in the city's future, and not just for Austin Morris.  West Shore Bank will have to figure some other way to do a quid pro quo with the City of Ludington for letting them get rich off of the subsidized building projects nobody sensible wants at the Bowling Alley Block and the Depot.