Huffman continues opposition to maintenance center in Capital Improvement Plan
Posted on 30. Dec, 2009 by Chris Dohman in City Council, City Finance
Is 6.5 million dollars too much for Shoreview to spend on a maintenance center upgrade? Shoreview Councilmember Blake Huffman thinks so but the rest of the City Council thinks it is money well spent.
The Maintenance Center Remodeling project is included in the Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) that was passed 4-1 in the most recent City Council meeting December 21st, but the garage project itself still needs a separate and final approval from the city council in a future meeting. The CIP resolution is passed each year along with the budget to help the city plan capital expenses for the next five years. All individual projects within the CIP need their own specific approvals and inclusion in the CIP does not give a project an automatic green light.
“The reasoning that we’re doing this I keep hearing over and over again is employee morale and increased efficiency,” said councilmember Blake Huffman. “Morale and efficiency are both really good things, I don’t think they’re in line with spending 5.5 to 6.5 million dollars. Morale, we know these people, especially in this environment, we’re not losing any staff and efficiency is something we have not been able to put our thumb on in terms of what that would measure.”
Huffman continued saying “In today’s environment where we have unemployment ten-ish percent, I’m not sure what t he latest numbers are, we certainly have home owner in distress, 100+ foreclosures in the last couple of years. To me this project delivers very little if any quality of life to most of our residents. Certainly in the last couple of years we’ve voted on fire departments, and Sitzer Park, and streets, police service and fire service and I support all of that because it adds to the value of life. I don’t see that in this case here.”
Councilmember Ady Wickstrom does not agree with Huffman’s point of view on the maintenance garage and voted along with Mayor Sandy Martin and Councilmembers Ben Withhart and Terry Quigley to approve the CIP which helps plan for the garage project.
“I don’t think this is for the morale of the employees. We have clearly outgrown the space. There are some definite safety violations that just redoing the roof is not going to take care of ,” said Ady Wickstrom. “When I realized that employees because they couldn’t all fit into the lunch room,were set up a lunch area in the garage. That absolutely horrified me. I don’t think that’s about morale. That is about safety of our employees. So I don’t think this should be characterized as improving the morale of our employees. This is about creating a safe work environment, and you know, allowing the space that our employees need to do their jobs. The current office, it’s like sardines, and there’s all kinds of conduit wiring all over the walls because back when that building was built nobody had computers and now everybody’s got computers, now there’s electric lines everywhere, its just so crammed. I know we’re not voting on the project today but I don’t want our residents to get the idea that we’re doing this just for morale. This is because its needed.”
The Public Works maintenance center makes up $6.5 million, or 64% of the total $10.1 million planned amount for 2010 of the CIP. The following 4 years average out to around $4.5 million per year in the CIP.
A public hearing for project financing of the maintenance center project is scheduled for the January 4, 2009 city council meeting. Bid considerations for the project are planned for February 16. If plans advance through these phases, construction is anticipated for March through December of 2010.
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