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By Randy Kugler
Now that the City Hall facility has been completed, it appears that the actual total project cost will be obscured with descriptions by City officials intent on avoiding telling us what it actually cost us. For example, the City Manager recently described completion of the project in terms of “construction costs” that came in under $800 per square foot. This description provides a narrow picture of the cost for building the facility by omitting project costs not paid directly by the General Contractor.
If City officials want to highlight their fiscal wisdom in how they delivered this project by framing it in terms of its “construction costs” we should remind them that the failed 2019 City Hall Bond measure would have resulted in a facility with “construction costs” under $550 per square foot. What exactly should we be thankful for with this announcement?
For a public facility, the project cost encompasses all expenses associated with planning, designing, constructing, and equipping the facility, as well as any associated costs like land acquisition, demolition costs, financing, and staff administrative overhead. It’s the total sum needed to bring the project to completion and make it operational. The City Hall project cost did not start with the groundbreaking ceremony in April 2024 but rather began with the purchase of the Underhill property and ended with a ribbon cutting.
Citizens are not interested in the bureaucratic parsing of select project cost categories that provide an incomplete picture of what we just purchased. We want to know what the total project cost is including the as of yet unknown debt costs for a project that was built and financed without a vote and substantially paid for with borrowed money.
Pay attention to how City officials present and approve the project close out report, particularly the debt servicing agreement with the State to pay for the loan for this project out of the General Fund. Our General Fund already has an unhealthy reliance on short term rental revenue and this Council yet again through this decision has ensured that we have mortgaged our community livability by further increasing the number of short term rentals for the next 20 years to pay off this new debt obligation.
Successful fleecing requires clever messaging to distort or present select information in order to avoid disclosing those facts that our City officials would prefer not to make known. The City plans to provide an accounting of the City Hall project cost at their September Council meeting. We deserve a full and accurate accounting of the actual cost, not partial project cost soundbites.