Confluence Referendum: Democracy in action or "mean-spirited?"

Tom Giffey, photos by Nick Meyer |

Eau Claire City Hall, Oct. 14.
Eau Claire City Hall, Oct. 14.

Eau Claire voters should have a say about whether or not the city provides financial support to the proposed Confluence Center, members of a newly formed committee declared Monday at a press conference on the City Hall steps. The Citizens Referendum Committee has asked the City Council to put a referendum about support for the proposed downtown arts center before the voters. If the council doesn’t do so, committee member Mike Bollinger said, his group is prepared to collect the 3,619 signatures needed to place a citywide vote on the April 1 ballot.

“This is not a decision to be left to 11 people,” Bollinger said, referring to the City Council. Bollinger, a former school board member who briefly challenged City Council President Kerry Kincaid in the 2012 election, said the “transformational aspect” of the Confluence Project make it a worthy matter to be decided by voters, not just their elected representatives. The roughly $80 million public-private project is a joint effort by UW-Eau Claire, the Eau Claire Regional Arts Council, and Commonweal Development to build a multi-venue arts center, student housing, and commercial space at the confluence of the Chippewa and Eau Claire rivers on South Barstow Street. The project would entail the demolition of numerous buildings.

Bollinger, who was joined by two other committee members – businesswoman Judy Olson and former City Councilman Larry Balow
From left to right: Judy Olson, Larry Balow, and Mike Bollinger, of the "Citizens Referendum Committee."

Bollinger, who was joined by two other committee members – businesswoman Judy Olson and former City Councilman Larry Balow – said the committee wouldn’t advocate for or against the Confluence Project itself, but only for putting the question on the ballot. He also said it was too early to say how a referendum question would be worded, but that the wording would be ready before the committee started soliciting signatures.

Bollinger said he supports the Confluence Project in theory, but that city taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for providing a financial backstop to a public-private effort. And Bollinger said he was skeptical of some of the assumptions made in a feasibility report issued in May by VenuWorks (PDF).

“The VenuWorks report was very difficult for me to swallow,” said Bollinger, who added that he asked questions of the City Council about the project’s financing but that “Those questions were ignored.” (Bollinger outlined some of his concerns in a Leader-Telegram op-ed in August.)

After the press conference, Kincaid – the City Council president – told reporters that input from Bollinger and others has been taken into account as the council has discussed potential city support for the Confluence Project. (The council is expected to discuss its investment in the project – which could total $13.5 million, including $2.6 million for a public plaza – next week.)

Kincaid, one of several Confluence supporters on the City Council who said last week that they weren’t supportive of holding a referendum, reiterated her opposition Monday. “A referendum is a very blunt instrument,” Kincaid said. “It’s not a very good way to express feeling about a complicated item.” She said it was preferable to do what the City Council has done since the project was announced in May 2012: deliberately moving through the process by holding hearings and meeting with arts groups, the developer, and soon state officials.

Kincaid also questioned the motives behind the referendum, which other council members have called a delay tactic. “This is a mean-spirited initiative, and our city doesn’t know what to do with mean things,” Kincaid said. “As I heard the proponents speaking today, I did not hear an unbiased open and honest laying of a question before the public. I heard references to the City Council being secretive, the City Council not responding to citizens, the expenditure of taxpayers’ money.” Much of the city’s portion of the project’s cost would be funded through taxes collected from the developers themselves, not taxpayers at large, Kincaid noted.

During the press conference, Bollinger emphasized that holding a referendum would be good for those on both sides of the argument. “If you choose to support the Confluence Project, then you should be in favor of this referendum,” he said. A referendum would prompt both Confluence backers and detractors to make their arguments directly to the voters, he said.

Balow, the former City Council member who also served three terms in the state Assembly, said he supported the Confluence Project, which is why he backed holding a referendum. He noted that a 1996 effort to build a convention center in Eau Claire fizzled because of a lack of public support. “If I were the Confluence Project people, I wouldn’t take a step forward without making sure I had public support,” he said.

However, City Councilwoman Catherine Emmanuelle said Friday that members of the public already have expressed their opinions about the project by voting last spring for council candidates, many of whom had clearly stated their support for – or opposition to – the Confluence Project.

“(A referendum) does not allow for a meaningful citizen input process,” she said.