Money better spent on urgent projects

Regarding the Thursday article, “Everett votes down children’s theater option”:

Sounds like three of the voting members on the council should have abstained during the vote due to conflict of interest. Council members Brenda Stonecipher, Mark Olson and Paul Roberts sound like they are very involved with the theater in question. Are they using their position on the council to funnel city money to their pet project? I thought just the appearance of conflict is the test. We are talking about real money here.

Two weeks ago the theater was expected to be $2 million. In this article prices have doubled to $4 million, including an adjacent plaza. Also, regarding the statement by Councilman Olson that the city has already spent $400,000, so to pull out now would be a waste of money: What is he talking about? We should go ahead and spend the $4 million just because we have already spent 10 percent of the money? This makes even less sense when we can get the project for much less with a public/private project involving the Skotdal developer.

We are in the middle of a downturn in the economy and several other city projects need funding. The Broadway train overpass, a major road through Everett, is failing and no funding to start the project is on the horizon. Would not the $4 million be better spent so we can keep getting workers and shoppers into and out of our city to pay taxes to keep our government going?

Dave Hensen