By Bob Seidenberg
Members of the city’s Finance & Budget Committee are discussing the need for a new policy, requiring projects with large capital expenditures to come before them for review before going to the City Council for action.
Committee members spoke about such a potential policy at their meeting Tuesday, voicing concern they weren’t given a chance to analyze proposals such as a 15-year lease of city offices to a downtown office building – a potential $37.4 million project cost.
“It’s disappointing to read about these kind of things in the paper that have obviously been done around the committee,” committee member Leslie McMillan told City Engineer Lara Biggs. She included the city’s sudden $2.6 million purchase of the former Little Beans Cafe at the same meeting at which the Civic Center and Police/Fire Headquarters issues were discussed. City officials maintained they had to act fast on purchase of the building, which they hope to convert into a community center, because they were fearful that someone else could take it off the market.
The city’s actions make “me wonder what exactly we think the purpose of the committee is,” McMillan said. “If it isn’t to talk about these sort of things, then I think it’s purely performative.”
Biggs had been invited to the meeting to present future options for the Civic Center and the Police/Fire Headquarters, including estimated costs.
Other members of the committee were also critical of recent city actions on major projects that were taken seeking feedback from the committee.
Established in 2021, in the midst of another chaotic budget season, the group – composed of both council members and residents like McMillan with strong finance backgrounds – meets monthly with staff and various experts, examining in depth the city’s financial issues.
McMillan said issues such as the civic center relocation “should have been something that we had a long conversation about. And you know, it’s disappointing, and I just can’t understand how we think it’s going to cost 500 some-odd dollars per square-foot to renovate the facility [the Civic Center]. You know, a lot of these figures need to be challenged.”
McMillan noted that she and member Shari Reiches had a meeting with Biggs a little over a month ago. She said that the possibility was raised that some things could happen, “but none of the figures, or even the possibility of signing a 15-year lease with a $9 million opt-out at seven years came up.”
Process, not the decision itself: Reiches
Reiches joined in, prefacing her remarks to say she wasn’t disagreeing with the decisions the city had made. “I just think it’s the process,” she said. “And when we spend a lot of time as a committee on the budget, and these are two items that were not on the budget,” she said, referring to Civic Center and Police/Fire HQ issues.
Reiches also heard about the matters through the media, she told Biggs. “And then I went to the council website to see. … So you know, I’m just more disappointed with the process than all the decisions that were made.”
Several of the council members on the budget panel who had voted no to the Civic Center lease at the Jan. 22 council meeting also chimed in.
Lack of transparency concerns Kelly
Council Member Clare Kelly (1st Ward), said her concern was a lack of transparency, “because in the end the decision was made publicly in a 45-minute period – a huge decision to move into someplace for 15 years and potentially build another building.”
“I mean, that’s a terrible thing to do in our community, especially when we have a finance/budget committee,” Kelly said, adding, “I also want to say, a 15-year lease is ridiculous. I mean this is the softest market for office buildings that we’ve seen in decade.”
Further, she said, “this idea of $63 million to rehab [the Civic Center] – I mean people are laughing at that number.”
She argued that the committee should issue a statement of disapproval for the process which took place, to guard against history repeating itself. “It’s not enough saying going forward we’re going to do this,” she said to the idea of drawing up a policy.
Reid: Little Beans might be an exception
Council Member Devon Reid (8th Ward), however, said he saw the committee’s role as weighing in on the financial impact of the project. For instance, he said, examining in depth what will be the total cost to the city of the project if the city stays in the 909 Davis building for the full 15 years.
“And I will second the calls from folks to say that this should have been something that came to this body,” Reid said.
“I will say that I don’t know if the smaller purchase of Little Beans necessarily had to come to this committee. I do think the council needs to be able to move and react with efficiency.”
Similar to Reiches, David Livingston, chairing the meeting, said he didn’t think it was the committee’s role to second-guess the council.
“I do have a big problem with the fact that we don’t have a policy that says that the cost of unbudgeted capital projects or cost overruns over a certain amount need to come to this committee before they go to the City Council for approval,” he said, “because that would provide a heads-up that this is coming and an opportunity for more public input and debate.”
He said he didn’t think it was the committee’s responsibility to issue some sort of statement that “we think it’s a bad project.” That would be up to the City Council to make that determination, he said.
“We will have it on the next agenda to vote on a requirement for unplanned capital expenditures or cost overruns to first come here before they go to the City Council,” he told the committee.
