Monday, May 20, 2013

Water on the brains: Much less for far more will keep us swimming in it.

Since the serious prospect of a new municipal swimming pool or aquatic center was made public in New Albany, several people, though not elected officials or most media types, have issued numerous, relevant questions.

Roger did a fine job, for instance, of asking how or why an aquatics-based project fits with quality of life justifications, particularly when more pressing quality issues, some of which are much less expensive to address and more costly not to, stand mostly ignored.

Likewise, Sam Schad and his group asked why, with such a huge expenditure, we can't at least get increased utility from such a facility if we're going to build it anyway without the sort of considerations Roger suggests.

Somewhere in-between the two, I mused that whether the expenditure would be worth it or not would depend largely on what was ultimately and comprehensively delivered-- hardly a profound concept but one too readily dismissed by too many current decision makers. Given the vast amount of money then proposed and now doubly approved, I foolishly held out hope that council voices would rightfully point out that, for the price, we should be able to produce an aquatic center and a competitive lap pool and the reclamation of our two-way streets and perhaps some other potential initiatives.

Why did/do I think that? Because, apparently unlike some voluntarily voiceless council members, I bothered with a smidgeon of research into how comparable cities have handled comparable situations.

Marion, Ohio, is one such city. Its population of just under 37,000 is almost exactly the same as New Albany's. Marion, too, had an aging pool - a very common predicament nationwide - in a setting of roughly the same land space as Camille Wright: one that needed either substantial rehabilitation or replacement if the city decided to maintain a facility at all.

Conversation in Marion was somewhat similar to ours here as well.  Like New Albany, there were discussions of the overall usefulness of such a facility and whether or not it would cash flow. Totally unlike New Albany, there was even legitimate debate about proposed costs. Finally, Marion's city council online.com/uncategorized/2011/06/council-overrides-veto-of-aquatic-center/">overrode a cost driven mayoral veto to build an aquatic center, depicted below via text and images from online.com/">Marion Online and the aquatic center's Facebook page. It opened last summer, 2012, and has since online.com/news/2013/03/marion-aquatic-center-earns-state-award/">won a state award for recreation facilities.

"The new center will feature heated water, Lazy River, Floating Lilly Pads, Zero-depth entry, 25 foot Racing Slides, a 6 foot Family Slide, a Water Play set with a bucket that dumps 150 gallons of water, 25 meter 6 lane pool with a high dive and low dive and a separate baby pool."

It indeed appears to be a very nice facility that's been well received by the community. 

Here's the rub: That debate about cost that led to both a mayoral veto and a council override? It was a fight over whether to spend $2.4 million or $3.5 million. The council favored the 3.5 and won. 

All the above- much of it strikingly familiar - was built within the past couple of years for less than half of even the most conservative cost estimate provided by the administration and approved by the council for New Albany's impending center. Assuming we're not purposefully overspending for nefarious political purposes, New Albany could have something very similar and $4 - 5.5 million left over to address other quality of life needs without spending any more than what's already been approved.

Making that possible, though, requires a majority of council members who think beyond mayoral and Estopinal suggestions and consider such basic, comparative due diligence a part of their job. In terms of what our council has thus far publicly offered up relative to aquatic center merits, the one direct comparison offered here - easily gleaned from about 30 minutes of individual research - unfortunately represents more than our council members have collectively put forth over several months. 

The quantity and quality of discourse around numerous "park" projects has been so low and the prices so high that, if I didn't know some of the folks involved personally, I'd probably just assume they were receiving substantial kickbacks for such a dubious (lack of) effort. I don't believe that, but the lack of diligence has been egregious enough to make it a plausible explanation to fill an obvious void.

One would think (or at least I did) that the public embarrassment of a $750,000 downtown pocket park with less utility and flexibility than a $200,000 park could've offered and/or tens of thousands so casually given to a Bicentennial Commission who clearly told council members they had "no idea" how the money would be used before being granted funding should have been sufficient cause for a slightly more thoughtful approach in considering the aquatics expenditure. But, then, I already admitted to being foolishly optimistic.

If any of the council "yes" voters would like to explain exactly which portion of our proposed aquatic center justifies multiple, additional millions as compared to what we can plainly observe here, the floor is open. It's been open for months. Until any such rational, evidence-based explanation materializes, however, "rubber-stamp" criticisms will ring truer than usual for a group who, via the intelligence of its individual members, ought to know much better. 

As an overall experience, our current council group has in ways been even more frustrating than some of the lesser moments of the Kochert-led era that served as my introduction to New Albany politics. During that time, a distinct lack of intellectual capital coalesced with an abundance of insider bullying to render capacity so low as to substantially limit both expectations and actual potential. 

But that's not the case here. What we have now is an example of "won't" rather than "can't" in which acquiring council seats has somehow rendered usually talented people into an amorphous mass of counterproductive group decline. The sum is less than its parts. No one is consistently demonstrating their capacity for good questions, so we're settling for lousy, injudicious answers and losing badly.

So far, a bunch of really smart people have managed to haphazardly waste millions in public funding without so much as addressing some fundamental quality of life and prioritization issues. If such behavior continues unchecked by any number of council members quite capable of checking it, future councils and the city at large will have a much more difficult time responding to those issues as we try to dig ourselves out of holes already dug, some quite literally, at places like Bicentennial Park and the aquatics center. 

As a citizen and voter, I've always felt it important to extend at least some effort toward helping ensure that we elect as talented a group of leaders as possible. This council, however, with its inexplicable yet seemingly automatic brainpower off switch - apparently activated by the doors at city hall - is calling that premise into question. 

An unexamined "yes" is no better and sometimes worse than an ignorant "no" in that it actively reduces opportunities rather than just passively ignores them. In short, all this "no-brainer" malarkey when it comes to water features is costing us a lot of money that could easily be better spent but which we'll never get back. 

We've seen several frighteningly unthinking financial decisions from this council lately that, taken together, set quite a negative precedent that should be and, since no aquatics contracts have been let, can be immediately corrected before yet another boondoggle becomes a part of their permanent record.

6 comments:

Iamhoosier said...

Thanks, Jeff. I've emailed a link to the 4 members that represent me on the council. I'd email one to the Mayor but I've yet to find an email address for him.

If you'd like to send a link to your representatives on the council, you can get there email addresses here:

http://www.cityofnewalbany.com/government/city-council

Jeff Gillenwater said...

Thanks for reading and sharing, IAH. It will be interesting to see what sort of responses you get.

Iamhoosier said...

Sh*t. Re-reading my comment. I do know the difference between "there" and "their" even though it doesn't appear that way. LOL

Randy said...

But, lordy, lordy, don't blame Gahan. Really cheap shots at the council here when this is Mr. Gahan's project, fail or fail bigger.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

Bookseller,

As you well know, I've spent years asking for a more proactive council, one whose standing committees actually meet, develop improvement ideas based on solid research, and make proposals for priorities, spending, etc. As expressed here, I had hoped that electing some more talented folks would help accomplish that.

Throughout three different councils now though, including this one, I've generally been told (even by you, at times) that it's the mayor's job to set the tone, to put forth ideas and plans. It's the council's job, as keeper of the public purse, to sit in judgement of those proposals, to act as watchdog.

This council has now blown that self-described role multiple times in short order. Gahan's idea here is lousy. So is the council majority's response.

Failing to single out the one person you most dislike doesn't equate to cheap shots on others. It would have been easy to pick on individual council members as well, given an array of absurd utterances and contradictory behavior throughout this process, but I didn't do that, either.

I'm specifically asking the council to override Mayor Gahan on this issue. That's not exactly an endorsement.

RememberCharlemagne said...

I believe the ship as sailed on this one.