THE GUARDIAN has followed the reasoning why the city of Caldwell wants a new city hall and why Canyon County wants to decentralize and consolidate offices. It all pretty much boils down to NO PLAN.
Caldwell wants a new city hall as a catalyst project for downtown to kick start economic development. Nobody has explained how a new city hall will actually do anything but cost $15 million in urban renewal money. City functions are now in three buildings about a block apart. Administrative, Community development/Engineering, and Police in three separate structures. Seems like a pretty decent set of offices to THE GUARDIAN for a town the size of Caldwell. The city wants everything under one roof to "save money and create efficiency".
Next, we have the County and their efforts to decentralize offices and use tele-conferencing to "save money and create efficiency". The Deciders bought the Job Service building and a lot of other real estate to scatter their efforts "too keep costs down" for the taxpayers. In the case of the county they need more court space and have applied yet another band aid to the problem.
In both instances THE GUARDIAN has to ask ...WHERE'S THE PLAN? (reads where's the beef?). The "experts" at the city and county departments of "EXPERTOLOGY" really do need to do some good old urban planning or we are all in for some very expensive lessons that will be paid for by the taxpayers. Does anyone really belive a new city hall will create economic development in downtown Caldwell. Or does anyone really belive that moving county functions out of the courthouse area will save the taxpayers any money when Developmental Services and the Licensing offices are moved yet again. (reads NO PLAN)
The real opportunities to save the taxpayers some money were eliminated when the county turned down the $11MM offer from the Caldwell Urban Renewal Board, the offer of the Vanburen School property for county office expansion, bought the job service building and the Vallivue School District now has to build a school building.
No comments:
Post a Comment
A public discourse on the issues of the day makes the world a better place.
We welcome comments but they will be moderated and edited if too long or do not have anything to do with the post.
Agree or disagree just do it without profanity or it won't get posted. Try to keep your comments to no more than 300 words. Too long and I will try to edit it down or simply delete the comment. The whole idea is to get people to read your comment. Don't use 10 words when one will do the job.
It's OK to have a difference of opinion but keep it civil. I have used the "delete" feature on myself at times.
The ANONYMOUS feature for comments seems to be the most user friendly. People have commented they have difficulty with the other methods of posting comments.