*Note: This is a reader-submitted opinion piece. Opinions and letters to the editor can be sent to news@clarksvillenow.com
It is City budget time again. Mayor McMillan has proposed about $8 million to purchase land for two really huge potential projects. This City does not have a history of doing a lot of large projects under any Mayor. Let’s just define a large project as being anything over $10 million for one project. In McMillan’s 6.5 years of mayorship, there have been exactly zero large projects. If you go back 15 years prior to her time, you get a few more. Mayor Piper spent $11 million on Ted Crozier Blvd. and $35 million on Liberty Park. The Riverwalk as it is today and Heritage Park as it is now probably cost over $10 million but both have been added to incrementally over the years.
The two projects Mayor McMillan wants to buy land for are a Sports Complex and a Performing Arts Center. The studies/proposals related to those projects have a combined price tag of about $90 million dollars. Based on our history, the odds of Clarksville tackling one of these projects are very slim. The odds on doing both of them in the near term are about like my odds of winning the lottery.
In the same meeting where Mayor McMillan proposed buying land for these two huge future projects, Councilwoman Wanda Smith proposed $1.5 million dollars for the City to demolish and clean up the most blighted and dangerous property in town, the old Frosty Morn plant. The City owns that liability. No other property owner would be allowed to leave it in that condition. Councilwoman Smith was told that adding $1.5 million to the budget would require a tax increase so it couldn’t be done this year. You have to think about that for a minute. Mayor McMillan wants to spend $8 million on land for a future $90 million in projects but adding $1.5 million to the budget will cause a tax increase and she doesn’t want a tax increase. Where is the magic $90 million going to come from? Next year is an election year. Does anybody really believe she will propose a tax increase next year?
The fact is that there is no plan for building either of these projects and any councilperson who votes to buy land for a project with no idea of how it will be paid for or when it will get built is acting irresponsibly with taxpayer dollars.
Don’t get me wrong. I am all for both projects. I think we need a decent performing arts center and more sports facilities. The need to for the sports facilities is about at the crisis level. And I think the City should act on those and other projects sooner rather than later. We seem to be leaving the era of incredibly low interest rates and Clarksville will not have taken advantage. Doing any projects is just going to cost more in the future as interest rates rise.
Former Councilman Wayne Harrison was consistent. He voted against anything that cost money as a rule. But even Wayne voted in favor of money for Riverside Drive streetscaping one year and he made a great comment explaining why. Wayne said he wished the City had not started that project but stopping where the money ran out would be like having one sock on and one sock off. Mayor McMillan has proposed only buying one sock from the start. If she really wants to do one of these projects, she should put the whole $8 million into one and add the money required to get it built. If it takes a tax increase, then be honest and up front about it and just do it. At least then the taxpayers will get some use out of that initial $8 million. Buying one sock just doesn’t make much sense.
Jeff Robinson
Owner – Blackhorse Brewing Company