Board of Aldermen 12-23-2019 Page 12
Frankly not many people have said anything, in fact just the opposite, some of the people in the
neighborhood say they are not opposed to this project. We gave them, thanks to the Board and largely
thanks to whoever controls snow, which caused a delay in the Public Hearing so the informational meeting
could occur prior to the Public Hearing. So people had an opportunity to hear about this and ask questions
and the presentation was made available on-line. Evidently, people are not opposed to it: at least they
haven't expressed any opposition.
So the idea of moving the Administrative Building, building this new building, | think is a necessary project,
but | think it’s only part of the solution. | think that that the long-range plan as the Director and Commission
Teas said during the Public Hearing, the long range plan is to move the garage that is currently located on
stadium drive and the garages that house the Park Recreation vehicles, to the landfill site.
| think they would do it now but It’s a much more expensive project and | think the Board of Public Works
recognized that the City just cannot afford to that right now. It is going to be, you know, this is the first step
in that. So | support this, the alternative would be much too expensive | feel. If we had the money, | think
that’s what we would want to do. But we’ve heard the Mayor talk about the healthcare costs and other
pressures on the budget. So | think this is the most we can do at the current time. | think it’s very much
needed so | will support this and vote for this.
Alderman Lopez
| just want to say this is a long overdue investment. | mean the City will become a disaster in two weeks if
we don’t have garbage pickup. If we don’t have clean water, our roads plowed, Public Works does a lot of
works. They don’t always get a lot of thanks for it. | mean sometimes people are focused on what is going
on at the end of their driveway and they don’t really have the whole City perspective in mind. | think the
Administrative Staff that oversees all that activity and helps organize it does a very good job overall for the
amount of work that they do compared to their size.
So | just think this is a long overdue investment. As Alderman Jette pointed out and Alderman Tencza, it
certainly doesn’t foreclose us on pursuing additional needs. This is an incremental approach, we have the
opportunity to do it and it makes sense to do it now.
A viva voce roll call was taken which resulted as follows:
Yea: Ald. O’Brien, Ald. Gidge, Ald. Harriott-Gathright, Ald. Dowd
Ald. Klee, Ald. Laws, Ald. Lopez, Ald. Caron, Ald. Kelly,
Ald. Jette, Ald. Melizzi-Golja, Ald. Tencza, Ald. Schmidt, Ald. Clemons
Ald. Wilshire 15
Nay: 0
MOTION CARRIED
Resolution R-19-187 declared duly adopted.
