[posted by David Schankula]
Dear Mayor Newebberry,


We hope you’ve had a good summer. It’s been a hard time for America, what with the creeping Communist takeover of our government and all. We figured you probably had your hands full organizing Comrade Obama’s youth army and deciding whose grandmas to send to the death panels, so we’ve given you some space.


But they say all politics are local and since you’re the president of Lexington, we figured it was time to revisit the teabag in front of our face—the CentrePointe project. 


When last we heard from your friends the Webbs (who, according to public property records, are also your former neighbors?), they were pledging progress, or at least the promise of the promise of future progress, within the next 30 to 60 days. As BizLex reported on July 9th:
[CentrePointe lawyer Darby] Turner said he was hopeful that work toward a permit to allow excavation and later a building permit could begin in earnest within the next 30 to 60 days, though he readily admitted that was the same timeframe his client, Dudley Webb, has been quoting for “quite some period of time.”
That was about 70 days ago.
We are tempted to give you the benefit of the doubt. So maybe we could take it on faith that progress has indeed been made and, as you and the Webbs did for months prior to publicly announcing the project, you’ve just not told anyone.
When we were little, the great magician David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear live on national television, so we believe it’s very possible that the anonymous dead guy’s $250,000,000 was finally wired through and that the hotel has actually already been built—you’re just hiding it. Perhaps you and the Webbs are simply waiting for a dramatic moment for the unveiling. Maybe it’s an October surprise. (Incidentally, our birthdays are in October and we couldn’t ask for a finer gift: give us that, a cake shaped like a basketball, the key to the city, and all is cool between us).
But what if – and we’re just playing Devil’s advocate here – the CentrePointe hotel isn’t hiding behind smoke and mirrors (or swamps and mud-puddles), Mr. Body’s $250,000,000 check still hasn’t arrived, and other than a layer of fresh grass, no progress has been made on developing the empty lot where downtown used to be?
What if nothing’s changed except the color of the leaves and the Webbs’ artificial timeline?
Well then, it seems like you, as Mayor, would have some questions.
Now, we know you’re busy. Aside from forcing schoolchildren to watch Socialist dogma telling them to stay in school, not use the wrong drugs, and wash their hands, you are also preparing Lexington for the 2010 World Equestrian Games and remaking Limestone i
n the same way you remade Main Street.

But still, you must be curious, right? Everyone else in the city is curious, so unless you have some inside information, we can only assume you, too, have been bitten by this swine-like curiosity bug.
Well! Have we got a scoop for you!
According to an internet web site about skyscrapers, Dudley Webb has new news!
Documents have been signed, but we are still awaiting our funding.
Thanks for your interest……
Dudley
Documents have been signed! No money yet! Maybe in 30 to 60 days!
OK. To be fair, we’re not entirely sure that this is new information, but Dudley Webb sure makes it sound that way. As we understood it, the paperwork had always been signed it’s just that the signature belonged to a mysterious dead guy.
But you’d know more about that than us, right Mayor?
After all, you had inside knowledge of the CentrePointe project long before it was announced to the city at large, and you never uttered a word about it.
And, as you told us in May at the Mayor’s Night In, you knew that the Webbs’ mysterious financier was dead well before the Webbs chose to tell the rest of us – and again, you kept their secret.
So we’re wondering, Mayor: What is going on with the CentrePointe project? It’s been over 60 days since the Webbs last promised an update, and, well, we haven’t heard anything.
Do you again know something you aren’t telling us? Or, if not, could you maybe see if your friends have any updates they’d like to give the city? Is our long urban-county nightmare almost over?
Your Loyal Lexingtonians,
Willie & David
***
