You expected anything else?
Let’s start with unsuccessful Greensboro City Council candidate Gary Nixon’s op-ed refuting the argument —- expressed in another LTE in today’s paper —– that the city needs to move on the proposed aquatic center quickly in order to take advantage of a favorable economic climate:
The City Council should have the fortitude to stop the project until it can be funded entirely from recreation dollars or a combination of the authorized $12 million bond issue, federal or state grants, and private dollars.
My past experience in over-budget construction bids for capital municipal projects indicates that if a project is rebid (or the design is slightly modified and then rebid), about 90 percent of the time contractors will offer better bids. Therefore, the argument that we must move quickly to accept the current low bid is not valid.
Even more interesting is a commenter’s research —- found here—- stating that the city is restricted to using its share of the hotel/motel occupancy tax “primarily to support debt service on improvements to the Coliseum Complex.”
OK—- the way I read this situation —-I’m not a CPA either—- is the city is lending money to the occupancy tax fund so it can then take money from the occupancy tax fund in order to pay debt service on the coliseum. Sounds crazy, but this whole deal has been crazy from the start. Let me know if I’m missing something.
