We are told that the current administrative facilities for the Kent Police Department are inadequate. The City Council proposes to tear this building down. I wonder how the police will operate when they have no facilities at all, instead of merely inadequate ones?
Apparently the current building is not really the problem, but if it is, then surely there are options other than tearing it down and constructing a $34 million monument to government waste in its place. Directly across from the current police station most of the Post Office building has been vacated for years. I have no doubt that this space could be had for a song.
If the floor space there would not be considered large enough, a half a block over is the old Penny’s store, most recently incarnated as the Meeker Street Emporium. It, too, has been vacant for several years. Currently the sign out front says that the building is for lease, but given the right offer, surely less than $4 million, it too could be purchased and the infrastructure updated to meet the needs of the police department, for a savings of $30 million.
I wonder if these options were even considered? Under this plan current police operations would not be impacted by the tearing down of the current structure, and an empty building downtown finds a tenant.
I find it ironic that the current City Council is conservative in all things social, yet liberal when it comes to tax-and-spend. Recently they refused to allow either retail legal marijuana sales or any commercial growing facilities. Here was a golden opportunity for the council to bring much-needed income to the city. Instead of banning these new businesses, which the people have voted to approve, they should embrace them as partners and share in the profits. Let the pot smokers pay for the new police department.
I am on a fixed income of $12,000 a year in Social Security. Of that, $2,000 already goes to property taxes, leaving me with only $10,000 a year to live on. Yet I manage. So forgive me if I question the ability of a mayor who makes a six-figure income, yet has trouble paying her condo fees, to manage a project of this size.
Tell the mayor and the City Council to go back to the drawing board and image that the money they propose to spend is their own, and not that of the tax-paying citizens of our city. Vote for fiscal accountability. Vote no on Kent Proposition A.
– Marshall Dunlap
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