What Are The Top Edmond News Stories of 2008?
Residents agreed Edmond needed a new public safety center, but the price tag and proposed location turned voters off in the general election.
The $31.5 million center planned to be built at Main Street and Kelly Avenue is one of the top Edmond news stories for 2008.
Voters soundly rejected a proposal to raise property taxes for 10 years to build an 83,068-square-foot center. The proposition was defeated with a vote of 24,121 (61.2 percent) to 15,268 (38.8).
A residents’ Police Facility Needs Assessment Committee and city officials said the current facilities housing the police, 911 call center and emergency operations are too small and can’t be expanded.
Officials said the proposed building would have met the city’s needs for 20 years while the life of the building would have been 50 years. The cost for owners of a $100,000 home would have been an average of $43.94 a year, or $3.66 a month.
Location opposed
Opponents didn’t like the location and wanted to keep the police department downtown. The proposed location consisted of the four acres called Barnett Field and two adjacent acres.
Attorney Barry Rice said, “City council wants to use six acres of park and green space for an automobile-oriented facility rather than consolidating all city administrative offices in our downtown with a pedestrian-friendly facility built with the future in mind. The city council is not following its own master plans. Every master plan in the history of Edmond recommends this type of facility be downtown.”
But Deputy Police Chief Steve Thompson said, “There are not six acres of ‘green’ park space. There are four acres of underutilized, unmaintained surplus property that the YMCA uses as practice field, with no scheduled games there. Every possible location in the downtown (area) is either inadequate or too expensive. Some landowners are asking three to four times the market value for land in the downtown area.”
Sales tax
Other opponents believed a sales tax would be a better way to fund the project. City Treasurer Stephen Schaus said, “Increasing the property taxes to purchase general obligation bonds to building the center will save $14 million when compared to raising the sales tax and buying revenue bonds. Revenue bonds would cost $55 million. General obligation bonds would cost $41 million.”
But Randel Shadid, with the Committee to Stop Higher Property Tax, said, “Property tax financing has historically been left with the Edmond Public Schools who need this tax base to meet continued growth of the public schools. The city council now wants to get its foot in the property tax financing door. Ad valorem tax will be increased on all homes in Edmond.”
Another election
After the defeat, the council looked at a proposal to hold another election in February, planning this time to use sales tax as a funding mechanism. But Councilman Wayne Page urged the council to wait until after the first quarter of 2009 to see whether the economy has turned around.
“I’m not sure we will please all of the people in this situation regardless where we locate it, regardless of the size,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is to have to come back in 10 years and say we need more money to expand.”
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