Public Safety Building

The city has expressed its need for a new Public Safety Building to replace the current Police and Fire Administration Building (old city hall) located at Nicholas and County Club Blvd. Expectations are that the cost will be about $50 million. Unlike the City Hall building, hopefully, this issue will be placed before the voters who will be asked to approve a GO Bond for funding.

Another funding mechanism being considered to help pay for the Public Safety Building is a new Public Safety Impact Fee. The Civic Association has always agreed that if Fire Impact Fees are justifiable then it also makes sense to have a Police Impact Fee, or combine both Fire and Police in the form of a Public Safety Impact Fee.

On 5/9/05 Council member AJ Boyd said; “It’s something we should have considered a long time ago. Most communities have a public safety impact fee.” AJ let us remind you that you did consider a Public Safety Impact fee “a long time ago,” and you rejected it! Council member LePera brought this idea before council back in Sept. 1999. The only support she received was from Council member Stevens. Had council considered the merit of the issue back then it’s highly possible that there might have been enough money accumulated to build a PS Building now without the need to borrow money. So much for planning and vision.

AJ’s memory is also cloudy when it comes to the cost for City Hall. The price tag exceeded $17million and that doesn’t take into account the associated land and right of way cost that was in excess of $2.5 million. With the associated finance costs for Revenue Bonds the city hall building project was over $35 million for which we are all still paying. The only opposition ever expressed by the Civic Association relative to City Hall was in response to council’s refusal to allow the city hall funding to go before the voters for a GO Bond.

And for AJ Boyd and Mr. Day’s information, the “Cadillac” version of city hall demanded by former Mayor Butler is exactly what the city built. Any claims by elected officials that the reason we are running out of space at city hall is because “a group of people objected to the building size” is pure B.S. on their part.