07/02/2025
Don’t believe claim that community center won’t impact taxes
By Ryan D. Wilson, Publisher
Here we go again. We have another multi-million-dollar project – the multi-generational family life center – that the people behind it claim will be built and operated without impacting taxes.
We’ve heard that story before with the football stadium. Not only did that project come in way over budget that had to be absorbed by the school district, it continues to impact the school district’s budget as adding handicapped parking for several hundred thousand dollars is something the board is talking about adding to its next bond project.
Like the football stadium, we see a lot of red flags with the proposed community center. That isn’t unusual with projects of this scale. It’s not uncommon for organizers and supporters to make exaggerated claims to get the project across the finish line.
But the one that always bothers us is the claim that it won’t raise your taxes. We’ve been through a lot of school, street and special bond issues, sales tax initiatives and other such projects and never once has the claim “it won’t raise taxes” been true. Not once. It wasn’t true with the football stadium, which required a boost in the capital outlay mill levy; not with the Aquatic Center, which despite the sales tax bringing in twice the revenue as projected has yet to be paid off early; and it wasn’t true with the street sales tax that the city promised to sunset when it was no longer needed.
What makes this project unusual is that they are starting construction before all of the funding is secured. We understand that a grant is driving this decision, but we are concerned because there is a very real possibility this project will only get half built.
Although the plan right now is still to fund building the community center with grants and donations, there’s no guarantee that is how it will end up. We heard the same story with the football stadium, only to find hidden costs pop up afterward – not the least of which is the cost of replacing the astroturf, which only has a lifespan of about 10 years and will cost roughly half what the new stadium was to be built. There will no doubt be hidden costs to this community center too that taxpayers will be left holding the bag to cover.
Another red flag is that that city doesn’t seem to have a clear idea of what it’s really going to cost to run and maintain this facility and seems to be leaving out costs they are going to be there. Take the cost of just staffing it, for example. The city has budgeted $18,000 for this purpose when they know it’s going to require at least two people to run it. The reason they haven’t budgeted for a second employee is because they are counting recreation director Pat Hayes being able to man the facility himself. They’re not taking into consideration that if Hayes is going to spend most of his time at this facility, they will have to hire someone to cover what he’s currently doing (unless of course, he’s been spending most of his time doing nothing).
As near as we can tell, the community center will cost the equivalent of two to five mills in property tax to operate. If they aren’t raising taxes to cover, it begs the question, what are they cutting to make up the difference?
At the public meeting last week, one of the members of the focus group that pushed for this project acknowledged that there would probably be costs that they aren’t considering, but he was confident the city would find a solution that was most efficient and that the community center would be worth whatever it cost. That’s easy for someone who isn’t struggling paycheck to paycheck to say.
At the last city council meeting, Public Services Committee chairman Daton Hess announced that sewer rates will go up a whopping $20 per household because there’s a lot that needs to be addressed. Although rising costs are a contributing factor to the increase, a large part of the need for the increase is because antiquated sewer pipes need to be replaced and it’s now catching up to us. Putting money into that project would be far more worthwhile than dumping it into a building we may or may not still be using in three years.
We ask the city to remember those who are struggling the next time they set the budget, and to remember it when the bids for the community center come in. It isn’t too late to say no. We are well past the point of too much being too much.
Unfortunately, we know all too well that no matter what concerns come up or even how much it costs, the people who want this are going to steamroll it until it gets built, even if it has been done on the backs of the rest of us.
To our fellow taxpayers, we can only offer this advice: “Brace for impact.”
