Built with private, public funding

In reply to Bernice Wright’s letter, “Senior Center built privately”: I stand by my statement, “the senior center was built with taxpayer dollars.” A statement from the city says:

“The City of Snohomish is proud to participate financially in the community’s successful construction and operation of the award-winning Senior Center on Fourth Street.

“Financial support includes over $350,000 in development cost and $1.5 million in ongoing subsidies.

The city paid $136,000 to remove contaminated soils on the building site and over $220,000 to install utilities and sidewalks, pave Fourth Street, and pay permit and connection that would otherwise have been charged to the Senior Center.

Ongoing support includes maintenance services, the below-market lease and the city’s $12,000 annual cash subsidy of the center’s operating costs.”

Surely, the taxpayers’ contribution of well over a million dollars and a monthly stipend of $1,000 a month should warrant the use of a meeting room at the center for only two nights a month council meetings. Without city taxpayer dollars and land, the current senior center would not have been built.

Morgan Davis

Snohomish