By Dr. Jim Tranthem Homestead
Taj Mahal is Not the Answer to a Contaminated Homestead City Hall
When the tax-paying residents of Homestead opposed the new Taj-Mahal styled City Hall to be built on Washington Ave. over 4years ago, they believed that that would be the end of that foolish fantasy.
However, as politicians are apt to do, they relied on our short term memories and influx of new residents to propose a new scheme - "we have a sick building" and we need to move out immediately to save our employees...our present city hall has been "sick" for more than 10 years ( radon , mold etc. out of control).
Council Solution : Throw good money after bad; $6 million to prepare 3 acres far west of our city center - on Washington ave. $17 - 18 million more for a new "Taj-Ma city hall" .
Second: Sell the most aesthetic, central, and visible existing city hall property, including our only public library, to a strip mall developer at a "half-price" sale ($6-8 million).
Third: Emergency/Temporary leased commercial property for city hall @ $20 thousand/month = $1/2 million to more than $1 million lease (only the mayor proposed relocatables on city owned property) at a fraction of that cost.
Tax-saving Solution: 1) Move employees temporarily to city owned property. 2) Clean up current city hall property, and rebuild a with radon-mitigating contractor on the building committee.
A sensible solution to a pressing problem would allow us to keep the most valuable corner in Homestead for the people - but this Council rarely deviates to sense when it comes to spending the tax-paying residents' money.
0 comments:
Post a Comment