Reality Check for a New City Hall

OFF the BEAT

ROBERT L. SPINKS, MA, MS

COMMENTATOR

A REALITY CHECK FOR A NEW CITY HALL Published on Wed, Oct 19, 2011 by Robert Spinks, MA, MS http://www.sequimgazette.com/spinks City Hall may need a life coach. A voice that can provide politicos with frank advice, and practice in listening and implementing the actual will of the community.

Development Council (EDC) in nearby Port Angeles for maybe 1/10th of the cost paid by the City.

The survey says that just 35 percent of residents were “somewhat to very supportive” of building a new city hall, compared to 84 percent for improving streets and 77 percent for reducing traffic congestion.

It’s time for a reality check about building a new City Hall.

I waited with great anticipation for the results of our city’s recently completed ‘scientific’ community survey. ‘Scientific’ often being touted in Council meetings when past informal surveys came across the desk of the City Council.

Money for Rent

The City at the urging of City Manager Steve Burkett, contracted with a top notch, national survey company to survey our small town. ETC Institute of Olathe, Kansas has a long list of major metro cities across the Country.

The final survey, which you can download from the City’s web site, cost over $100 a page. At 378 pages that’s $40,000, which includes 47 pages of maps showing how a handful of neighborhoods responded to survey questions. A great tool if you are the size of Seattle, Washington, D.C., or Shoreline. Not so helpful for a town of 6,500 people, this might be just one neighborhood in one of these larger cities.

A ‘scientific’ study probably could have been contracted through Peninsula College or though the resources of the Clallam County Economic

Deputy Mayor Laura Dubois has often been quoted saying that the City is paying $193,000 a year in rent.

She increased that number unscientifically to $200,000 a year at a recent candidate’s debate saying there’s added inefficiency with city staff being in different locations. The actual rent for 2012 will total $193,293.

Burkett stated that he’d like to walk down a hall in a consolidated city building to have an impromptu conversation with city employees as his justification for a massive city hall complex.

“Obviously we have phone and e-mail but it’s more convenient if I could walk down the hall and have an impromptu conversation with someone about an issue,” Burkett said.

Mayor Ken Hays stated he was excited about the September 12th vote to spend $1.25 million to purchase the NW corner of Cedar and Sequim Avenue for his

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new City Hall. “It’s been a mission for a lot of people for a long time. I think it’s a great day for the city.”

Hays has long been a proponent of the existing downtown location to the exclusion of others dating back years.

That great day will include additional demolition costs along with new construction expenses. Other parcels in town would have avoided further congestion in the city core, demolition costs and better police access.

“At some point we have to sell this to the public. You can’t do that well without a site. If we nail down the site, we can go to the next level,” Hays said.

There has been the occasional federal program that would fund a new Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in a community or maybe a ‘shovel ready building project.’ City Halls are not high on the federal government’s grant funding priority list when there are fire department needs, schools, medical facilities, sewer plants, bridges and infrastructure needs spread across the country. There is no free City Hall.

Millions for a new city hall complex, little attention to traffic, roads, and sidewalks. More congestion for the downtown with thousands of vehicle trips to a consolidated city hall that will have inadequate parking and take back parking from merchants especially at Sequim Avenue and Cedar St.

Now What?

Does the City need a new City Hall? That answer is yes.

But, does the community need an $18M City Hall Complex, that’s the real question.

Let’s say you find a federal grant (unlikely) for some of the construction, and you get zero percent financing, again from a federal agency, to build an $18M facility.

Let’s say the financing runs 30 years instead of just 20 years. That’s in the range of over $500,000 a year in payments. The City Council could issue Councilmatic bonds without a vote of the people to pay for some of that cost, though probably additional funding would still be required.

The normal process for funding capital projects is a vote of the people to raise city property taxes. While citizens may understand the general need, what they don’t appreciate are elected officials pushing a multi-million dollar building that equals out to every household in Sequim holding a $7,500 bill as their contribution for a new City Hall. That’s each household, including each apartment in town.

How often do we hear that government fails to listen?

Here we even have a ‘scientific’ study and the comment from City Hall is that the community needs to be educated to agree with our politicos. Instead shouldn’t City Hall actually listen to the voices of the community?

“We cannot make good news out of bad practice,” is a quote by broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow and it richly applies to the notion of building an $18M City Hall in Sequim.

Robert Spinks is former Sequim chief of police and Interim City Manager. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Sequim Senior Activity Center and the Olympic Community Action Programs (OlyCAP), is a volunteer Manager at KSQM 91.5 FM and an Adjunct Faculty member at Everest University. Reach him at robertbythebay@aol.com .

The City is paying $193,293 to lease office space and it would be nice if the City could take those dollars and apply them toward the repayment on a new City Hall.

That $193,293 a year would finance roughly a $4M City Hall over 20 years at zero interest.

The site is purchased, so instead of an $18M complex, a more affordable office building could be erected for say $4M. Let’s see how creative the city can be using that as a target.

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