I’m going to tell you a tale of a project that was rejected by the taxpayers, repackaged and sold as a “community project,” and is now going to cost you at least $376,669.14 when everything is totaled. And that’s just for the first phase – they plan to spend even more.
But first, I want you to mentally hear the sound of a choir every time I use the phrase “community project.” To help conjure up the choir sound, I’ll refer to it as a 
community project from now on.
Why the emphasis on that phrase? Well, it’s been rapturously repeated at least 10,000 times by our elected officials and city manager as the way to shove the latest city hall project down our throats, so I think that we should give it all the reverent attention it so richly deserves.
Click the link below so that you can get into the appropriate mindset as you read on.
What makes a project a community project? It’s just an activity or goal that involves local people who work together to accomplish an objective. More specifically, we are going to try to convince local vendors to give us some discounts on building supplies or services in exchange for free advertising and putting their names on a plaque. (You know, like our local diner did with their table tops – the diner got new tables, and the vendors have permanent advertising underneath the plastic sheet on all of the tables.) Oh, and maybe we’ll have some students put up some drywall so that we can say it’s educational too. But, since school is out for the summer, and the student program manager said that the students would likely be unavailable after June 1, we probably won’t have much student participation – but never mind that. Because it’s a community project! So, it’s totally worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. YOLO!
This project has a bit of history behind it. There is a group of people colloquially referred to as the “old guard.” They act as though they own the city because most of them were around when the City of the Village of Clarkston incorporated many years ago to address fears of being annexed by Independence Township. Frankly, if you look at how well Independence Township is run as compared to the City of the Village of Clarkston – when considering transparency, responsiveness, courtesy, government services, and being a good steward of taxpayer dollars – it’s painfully apparent that we got the raw end of THAT deal, but I digress.
The old guard is, for the most part, in their 70s and 80s, though there are some younger people. You can easily recognize them – they believe that only they know what’s best for the city. They prefer to operate in secret. Your job is to pay your taxes and keep quiet. They aren’t interested in your input – just your money – and they will bully anyone who dares to disagree with them.
The old guard has been absolutely convinced that we need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a “new” city hall for some time now. So convinced were they that those in government deliberately let the current city hall building fall into disrepair. Our current city manager has bemoaned the insects! The woodpeckers! The rodents! The rotting wood! The leaking roof! Fair enough, but most residents never go to city hall, except to vote, and given the change in the election law allowing absentee voting for any reason, there will be even less of a reason to visit city hall than before.
But . . . if they’d been good stewards of taxpayer dollars and done the proper repairs as the problems arose, then they would have lost their excuse to build their fantasy project. And darn it, that’s what they wanted, so the repairs were ignored.
They tried, oh, how they tried to push this project through in 2016. But we pesky taxpayers stopped them. We petitioned, we put up signs, we emailed, and we called to say HELL NO, we don’t want you to spend our money this way. Before they were stopped, they managed to waste $46,363.11 of taxpayer dollars to pay the planner, the architect, and the engineers.
Don’t believe me? I always provide proof of what I say, and I’ve included a copy of a spreadsheet with references so that you can look up the invoices yourself. The spreadsheet lists the charges incurred so far on the City Hall/DPW expansion, but remember, they’re just getting started.
They tried again late last year, but the numbers were too high – even for the spendthrifts. The old guard was disappointed, but not deterred.
During his presentation last December, the city manager told us that it would cost $48,000 to repair the walls, roof, and create a secure entrance. Incredibly, the city manager referred to this as the “do nothing” option. Because spending $48,000 in taxpayer dollars (on top of the $46,363.11 they wasted the last time) is apparently doing nothing.
There was no discussion about applying the community project approach to the needed repairs to reduce the cost below $48,000, but if you think that was ever the real goal, then you haven’t been paying attention.
You won’t find a comparison of the costs to repair (the “do nothing” option) versus the cost of the fantasy, and I think that’s deliberate – if you don’t have the facts, then you can’t complain.
You can find the video of the December presentation at this link, beginning around 00:46:00:
http://216.11.46.126/CablecastPublicSite/show/2515?channel=2
It’s worthwhile to watch this to see how quickly our fiscally irresponsible city council pivoted toward the fantasy project. The resolution that explains what they finally agreed to can be found in the May 13, 2019 council packet at page 8 (council packets are available on the city’s website).
What were the arguments in favor of this massive project? 1. The roof is leaking, the rear wall has deterioration, and much of the building is in poor condition; 2. The front counter area is not ADA compliant and offers no security; 3. There is no private meeting space; 4. We often have meetings that exceed the occupancy capacity; 5. The building restrooms aren’t ADA compliant and we have no public restrooms after hours, requiring that we spend $160 a month for port-a-johns; and, 6. Some of the records and equipment is stored off site (at a cost of $700 per month that supposedly “could increase” if we lost our current space), and darn it, the employees are inconvenienced by this. We also need to build private offices for our part-time city employees for their “privacy and security.” (Not noted under this plan is the necessity of having to pay our DPW employees to clean the nasty public restrooms that most certainly will be vandalized – as everything else has been in the park.)
Convinced yet? Yeah, me neither. This isn’t really qualitatively different from the “do nothing” plan plus a small amount more – fix the building, make the counter ADA compliant, continue meeting for free in the large meeting room offered by the Clarkston United Methodist Church, and update the internal restroom. The fact that there are no private meeting spaces or offices, and our employees might feel inconvenienced by traveling to get equipment or records, isn’t worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
As for the ultimate price tag, we know for certain that it’s going to be a lot more $300,000. They’ve already spent $5,749.02 outside of this budgeted amount for preliminary engineering, design, and legal work (these costs are listed on my chart with dates of 2018 forward) – and there will be more to come. The interest on the $300,000 loan will be $24,557.01. Even with all of our supposed “savings” (no port-a-johns and outside storage), our annual budget will be hit with an anticipated INCREASE of $10,837.00 per year. They haven’t factored in the cost of new furniture or the flat screen TVs that were excitedly discussed. There is a $36,000 fee that we are paying for a “flat fee construction management agreement” to MLC Building Company, but it’s unclear if that’s part of the $300,000 or in addition to it. If we don’t include the $36,000, the estimated total – so far – is $330,306.03. If we do include the $36,000, then the number goes up to $366,306.03. And you just know the final amount is going to be higher than that, don’t you? If you add in the $46,363.11 that they wasted in 2016, the amount is between $376,669.14 and $412,669.14.
The project is being run by our city manager, who claims to have experience with “big projects,” though any mistake he makes is our responsibility. There are no cost controls beyond a promise that the building costs will stay at $300,000. Because this has been sold to the city council as a a very special community project, they’ve been convinced to waive all of our bidding safeguards. Day-to-day decisions will be made in non-public meetings. We’ve also been told that this is just “phase zero” of a multi-phase project.
(Oh, and P.S. – the city manager is going to get a private office out of the deal.)
To be continued . . .
Just read this and that it was written over a year ago. The costs have continued to increase over what was known then, including a $50,000 driveway to get to the city hall and provide private parking for the city employees. There is also an article in the September 18, 2020 Oakland Press about the grand opening and dedication of the new city hall. Once again the city manager says it is under budget. It doesn’t say that it got that way by not accounting for work done by the city or that many of the costs were not attributed to the city hall but instead to something else.