COUNTY: Send faulty plan back to the drawing board
Regarding the proposed new Pierce County General Services Building, many Pierce County residents believe that an expenditure of $230 million is a matter that thoughtful, reasonable adults can discuss, debate and deliberate on for its merits and its costs. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
Whether we have thoughtful, reasonable adults at the highest levels of our county government is another matter, but our county executive and council did fail us by not opening up the debate to all of their constituents and by deciding, on a narrow majority vote, to proceed with construction of the building at the bloated cost of $400 per square foot.
Consolidating multiple buildings into one makes sense, but not unless you’ve first considered less costly, equally effective alternatives. Assessor-Treasurer Mike Lonergan wrote about such viable alternatives in this newspaper; he calls them Plans B, C and D.
Another factor to consider is the relatively small number of county residents who routinely, if ever, need to visit government offices, with easily accessible electronic transactions being the 21st century way of doing business.
This proposal needs to go back to the drawing board. I urge you to vote “no on the current Special Election Advisory Vote No. 1.
This story was originally published July 28, 2015 at 3:46 PM with the headline "COUNTY: Send faulty plan back to the drawing board."