A topic of great scrutiny at several recent Mill Creek City Council meetings has been the proposed community center.
One aspect of the plan is to let the citizens of Mill Creek have the final say on whether or not they want such a facility. Local voters may get their say next year. But in the meantime, the project is already facing intense City Council scrutiny before the actual public vote takes place.
Why? Simple. In the minds of Council members, this project is too risky, mainly because of cost.
To reiterate: The center, as proposed, would cost $8 million to build and likely operate at an annual deficit of approximately $250,000. For a community like Mill Creek, which largely relies on residential property taxes for its revenue, such an investment is risky.
In the post-Tim Eyman-led tax revolt era, municipal governments need to spend revenues wisely and prudently. The voter-approved Eyman initiatives eliminated numerous sources of public funding in the name of tax relief.
This is why the Council’s scrutiny of the community center project has been welcome and needed. The Council has been near unanimous in believing the project is too costly, too big, and too risky for the city to undertake. There also has been near unity that the community center, if it is built, should not be located right on Main Street in Town Center, but instead elsewhere in the development.
This issue is not the first one that the Council has examined closely and demanded city staff make changes, but this one is critical to the long-term viability of the city’s financial stability. This is an issue where the council must remain a strong voice for the citizens of the community.
The community center concept is a good one; it just needs to be refined before it goes out to the voters next year.
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