Hospital Helper

Midtown had more pressing needs, Glover said. He mentioned the intersections of 39th Street and Main and Linwood and Main ... and Trinity Lutheran Hospital.

Glover asked the TIF Commission to reconsider the plan. But Peter Yelorda, the chairman of the TIF Commission, refused, pointing out that City Council had already spoken.

I'll concede that the Fed TIF plan has its share of flaws. It is unsettling, for instance, to see the Liberty Memorial making yet another lurch for taxpayer money (“The Shaft,” February 22).

But it's just weird to watch and listen to Glover challenge this plan to a cage match. He hadn't been much of a hard-ass about TIF during his 12 years on the council. He'd voted to approve plenty of shoddy plans. Yet the one he chooses to attack with a flamethrower is one that makes a lot of people in his old district happy.

When I spoke to him in his law office last week, Glover said that he got more upset about the Fed TIF plan the more he learned about it. He said the expenditures hadn't been put through the usual tests. And even if they were, the plan, in his eyes, doesn't square with state law.

Glover told me he'd never spoken to Reeder about the Trinity Lutheran project. He said he hadn't received any compensation from Reeder or Mayer. He suggested that a truly corrupt public official would have cut a deal, not pitched a public fit.

"Look at my record over 12 years," Glover said. "I don't do stuff like that. Never have, never would."

Maybe he's simply a stickler for process, a tin ear who found a dubious last cause.

But any deal that Wayne Reeder gets close to deserves a hard look. Next week, I'll write more about his activities.