Speak Out 5/16/15

Pick central site for new city hall

Dear Speak Out

I would like to address the proposed new or rebuild of City Hall. I have personally seen and toured the building and in my opinion it is not worth resurrecting the current structure. The City and the Citizens of Poplar Bluff would be better served with a new building in a new location. I know the downtown area needs revitalization but face it, City Hall needs to be centralized so everyday people can find it. Downtown used to be the central area of the City, but fact it, downtown is not central any longer because of the growth of North and South Westwood Blvd.

If the City renovates or rebuilds on their current location where is the City employees at City Hall going to move until the renovation or rebuilds on the current site is finished? Pay to move and rent monthly when they could stay where they are while a new building is being build at a new location. Like now, the Police Department moving and will pay rent in the amount of $5,000.00 per month just to have a safe place to operate out of. Sounds like a no brainer to me and for us the tax payers and residents of Poplar Bluff, if the rest of City Hall does not have to follow this same pattern of wasting money for rent monthly Enough money has been poured into the old City Hall and maintenance, as one writer to Speak Out put it, should have been done on an ongoing basis. It is my understanding that it has . . . . when the City moved into the Old Lucy Lee Hospital site it was a very old building at that time and in dire need of repairs. Now, the cost of replacing the roof alone, which at one time or another each of us homeowners have to do, is costly and costly just to maintain it. The cost of replacing the existing roof alone, from all accounts that I have read, would be about 1/5 the cost of a new building and to put a new roof on a very old building just does not seem plausible.

I have noticed that the old Bluff Inn/Perkins Restaurant location is still empty and vacant. To me, that would be a perfect location for the city to build with a central location, ease of finding it, and plenty of parking. If the property owner could donate this property to the City it would be a great tax write off for the owner. Then, all of concerned citizens would only have to consider the costing of the new city hall.

We have had so much bad publicity lately that it is costing this City is terms of new business. Just for example I heard that we were supposed to get an IHOP and Academy Sports out by the new Walmart Neighborhood Market but they have put construction on hold. Why, I can speculate on why, because of the bad flap that keeps going on a daily basis. Come on people, it is time for this community to pull together, pray for our leaders, and move forward not backward. Stop all the hate mongering and negativity and let's start to rebuild this great City of ours. I have lived here all of my life and I believe that if you don't like present city officials, then voice your opinion at the polls where every vote does count at the next election.

Now let's encourage someone to donate property at a central location for a new city hall for the betterment of our community and all the citizens of Poplar Bluff. Surely someone loves this city enough to make such a donation, because I see it all the time happening for TRC. If you love TRC you must love Poplar Bluff too.

Try Kinyon as new city hall

I think that whoever said Kinyon School would be a good police department and city hall was right on the money. That is actually a very lovely building. It would be a lot better to reuse and retrofit something that is already existing. Surely that has to be, even with purchase, has to be cheaper than trying to build a new police station and city hall to look like a mini version of the hospital or copper-top. You know it would be nice if we did have something that was very nice looking in this town and Kinyon, if you did some minor renovation to it--just look at Smith & Co. across the street-how lovely that is. And I think it would help to rejuvenate the particular neighborhood Kinyon School is located in. I have no problem with them putting cameras all around that building. I think that would be a very, very good thing for the City of Poplar Bluff. I hope that it not too economical feasible or is too resourceful an idea to be considered by our current City Council and city management team. Thank you.