It’s not every day that a blogger comes right out and scoffs at objective, public processes for spending taxpayer money. But one prominent blogger has done just that. Billy Dennis says that making decisions via an objective, rational process is ludicrous and will result in poor decisions, like the failed “New Coke” formula.
That’s right. An open process like the one the library board has employed for more than the past year — including over 40 public meetings and an advisory referendum — is worthy of scorn by Mr. Dennis. In contrast, a closed-door summit between the city and school district, “held at the District 150 administrative offices with only a few elected members of each board so that the press and public could be excluded from the meeting,” is worthy of applause! The site near Expo Gardens was already publicly considered against objective criteria and discarded. For personal reasons not fully disclosed, the site is now being resurrected and pursued by the council, but behind closed doors.
I’m sure you’re wondering why Billy would take such a strange stance — against transparency, for special interest interference. For one thing, he thinks it’s good policy. Since council members are elected and answer to the people, he thinks that gives them carte blanche to discard any and all processes, no matter how well-researched or documented, in order to pursue their own personal pet projects. After all, if the people don’t like it, they’ll just vote that person out of office… after the money’s been squandered, unfortunately.
Another reason Billy stands up for arbitrary decision-making: he believes it might save $8-10 million. It has a great ring to it, doesn’t it? “Saving” $8-10 million? Where does that figure come from? Has it been verified? And are we really “saving”?
The figure comes from Mayor Ardis. The Peoria Times-Observer reported: “Ardis said closing the Lakeview Branch could potentially trim $8 to $10 million off the price tag of the library’s expansion and renovation project, projected at $35 million.” See, if they build a new library at Expo Gardens, less than two miles from Lakeview, there would be no need to keep the Lakeview branch open. Closing that branch, and thus not sinking any money into expanding or renovating it, would drop the price of the library’s renewal plans to $25-27 million (at least, by the Mayor’s calculations); hence, the $8-10 million in savings.
To my knowledge, neither the Mayor nor anyone else has released any detail on how they arrived at that figure. Not knowing the sale price of the land by Expo (it’s not for sale), the environmental clean-up costs, or a host of other variables, I don’t know how the figure could be verified.
As far as whether it’s “saving” anything, that’s kind of a backwards way of looking at things. If I say I’m going to spend $25,000 on a car, and then I decide to buy a $15,000 car instead, did I just save $10,000? No. I spent $15,000. Now, suppose the $25,000 car could seat six people, so my family of five could fit comfortably, but the $15,000 car only seats four. Have I made a wise decision to spend $10,000 less when the car I bought doesn’t meet the needs of my family?
This library upgrade works the same way. A new northern branch will cost about $11 million to construct, based on the experts at BCA (the library consulting firm that’s been working on this project who have a pretty good track record estimating library construction). Wherever we put it, it’s going to cost around $11 million. The question we have to ask ourselves is where the wisest place is to build the new branch. If we spend $11 million to build it in the wrong place, was that a wise use of that money? Is that being fiscally responsible?
Billy evidently thinks so. He’s admitted that it doesn’t matter to him where the new branch is built, which is tantamount to saying he doesn’t care whether the city council squanders $11 million or not. He’ll just be happy that the council “saved” $8-10 million, even if $11 million is wasted in the process.
