To The Editor:
As a town council member and after being thrown under the bus by our mayor I feel I should clarify a few things regarding the proposed REC CENTER. If any of you read the last week post from Scott Tolentino and then the rebuttal by our mayor, then you would have noticed that because I was the only council member that didn’t think it should go to the ballot I was cast down. I hope this will clarify I few items of concern that I have and that should be made as a note for all of you that are still wondering if you should vote in favor or against the Rec Center.
When I was first elected into the Town Council around 6 years ago I brought up the fact that we needed to consider a Rec Center. That was immediately shut down and wasn’t something that needed to be addressed. I didn’t push it after that. I have been in favor of getting a Rec Center in our area because I would like to be able to have that as something else to do as a resident of Garden City.
I was in favor of going through the data points to find out if this Rec Center was something that could be done for a reasonable cost as well as something that could self-sustain itself moving forward. I voted, along with the other council and mayor to spend $5,000 to go towards getting the information that would be needed to see if this could work.
We got our analysis back and after considering it further and after going to the presentation I found items within it that made me even more uncomfortable.
1st: It was stated that more than likely we would have to borrow from our general fund around $50,000 the first year. After that time, according to the statistics it would balance itself out.
That for me was a cause of alarm. The idea that our general funds would have to be used to get through the first year made me contemplate what about future years?
2nd: Could the size of the building be cut in half and still be favorable?
At first I was worried it wasn’t big enough but when the costs associated with this Rec Center came available I was concerned with that. My thoughts have turned to how could we save some money and plan for now and then add on for the future. It was first estimated to be around 3 million dollars and then it jumped to 6.5 million and the size of the building was shrunk on top of that. Yes, we can approve it and then decide to make it smaller and cut the costs down but is that how government should work things? Would you think that is what you call budgeting wisely? I sure don’t feel that is how we should operate.
3rd: Overhead, maintenance, work load.
As of right now we don’t have 2 city parks but we have 3 because they are all in different areas. That was also something else that I wasn’t in favor of however I was also beat out by the council and the mayor on that as well. The reason I bring this is up is that we already have 2 parks of which we have a hard time keeping them together as well as adding more to them. We have a huge debt that we need to come up with to complete our Heritage Park so that it could be utilized more. Those costs will be around $300,000-$500,00 thousand dollars to complete. Now the costs of these is substantial and yes they come from other tax dollars but the reason I bring this up is because of the costs of our maintenance on just these 2 parks let alone the cost of now our 3rd Park with the dollar amount I can’t go into because I am not sure exactly what our full intension will be to do at this location in the future.
Now we would have to take care of and maintain 3 parks and then a Rec Center when at this time we are barely able to take care of the 2 parks that are now up and running without any add-ons. Does this not make you stop and wonder?
4th : Is the location the correct spot for this large structure? Should we perhaps look at moving it to now a new 7-acre area so we do have room for expansion?
5th: I am constantly hearing on social media that we won’t be the ones to pay for it but the 2nd home owners. They will pay more because they are not permanent residents of Garden City. Have we stopped on considered the impact that could impose on where people decide to build when they come for a 2nd home in the Bear Lake area? Look at how many homes went in last year in Garden City, most of which were additions, but now look at how many are building in Garden City in 2016.
You can find all of this out so I won’t throw out speculation numbers but the drop between the 2 years in somewhere around 80+% negative from 2015-2016. Now let’s stop and consider adding another number of dollars that we will impose on these families and do we not understand that they will look for another location, outside of city limits to build their homes? What will that do to our infrastructure dollars that have been statically set up which dictates how much money our water bills are too be? Has this been thought out? What needs the most attentions is our infrastructure and by adding this amount onto our 2nd home owners do we see that it would come back to bite us in the end? If we cannot reach our projected numbers do, we want our water bills to go up not 3% annually but 10% to make up the proposed indifference? Yes, I am speculating numbers however do you not see this as an alarming issue? I won’t go into the road impact fees which are generated by home builders but that could cause less roads and less maintenance on future and existing roads as well…shouldn’t that be a cause for consideration?
These are reasons why I am not voting in favor of the Rec Center now. I am not oblivious to the fact that we need something like this but I don’t feel the timing is right nor are the statistics that we have received. We need to go back to the drawing board and look at all other options and just take a step back. Is putting the cart before the horse something that local government should be doing? Stop and think about that before you cast your vote.
The business community is for it. They want it to help feed their pockets which helps feed all of our pockets in our small city but sometimes as business’s we don’t look at it in all circumstances. Most of the business’s that are for it don’t even reside in Garden City. I do reside in Garden City however I do look at it from another avenue and that is with both eyes wide open!
It is up to you as Garden City residence to make the decision. If it goes through then I as a Town Council Member will do what I can to make sure that we can sustain it but I hope I won’t have to do that, at least now. We have been asked to budget wisely…is this wise budgeting? I would say absolutely not!
Respectfully,
Darin Pugmire
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