PORTAGE, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – Portage city officials are disputing news reports that they “pulled” half a million dollars out of the effort to create a new family homeless shelter.
Council member Terry Urban says the city of Portage got an urgent request to provide the money to obtain the former Residence Inn on Portage Road, and they agreed to commit the funding, but when that deal fell through, the agreement ended.
Urban claims when Kalamazoo County secured the deal to obtain the former Country Inn & Suites instead, that Portage wasn’t part of that arrangement.
“Nothing was pulled because no decision was ever made on this project. We had a contribution we made, they didn’t use that contribution and they weren’t able to go through with that plan,” says Urban.
“There was a new plan and they never asked us to contribute to that new plan. The plans for the counties changed to a different site, but the city of Portage was never asked to contribute to the new plan, we were never asked.”
That hotel which is now being remodeled into “The Landing” and should be phased into operation as parts of it are completed later this year.
Urban says to claim they pulled out of the effort, as a local news outlet reported, was misleading.
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