Monday, November 18, 2024

Circle the Wagons (at Florence City Hall)

 



When this reporter arrived, the chairs were all arranged in a circle in the auditorium of the Florence city hall for the special called meeting by President Kaytrina Simmons to discuss the plans for the new city hall building. The few reporters and spectator citizens who showed up for the meeting were not included in the “circle of trust” evidently. Our suggestions and ideas were outside the circle. In the circle was Kaytrina Simmons, Jackie Hendrix, Blake Edwards, Jimmy Oliver, Bill Griffin and Michele Eubanks along with 2 or 3 department heads, city attorney Billy Musgrove and representatives from Lambert, Ezell and Durham architectural firm.

The first idea to came from Jimmy Oliver who relayed the cost from the architects had placed the current plans for the city hall building as designed to be at least $55 million dollars. The city has already borrowed $48 million. Mr. Oliver said the city council did not need to borrow any more money. Jimmy had discussed with architect Calvin Durham the possibility of altering the plans from a 6-story building to two 3 story buildings utilizing the lot on the corner of Tennessee and Pine streets after demolition of the parking deck which currently was on the property. The gist of his plan would involve cutting back on non-essential spaces like conference rooms and shrinking the city auditorium space. It all sounded very reasonable.

Then Blake Edwards chimed in. His idea was to keep the blueprints the same as comprised with 6 stories on one city lot and just not finish the top 2 floors. He said the city could finish them later if need be. This sounded to me like building a 3-bedroom house and borrowing extra money to build a 5-car garage on the structure. Just in case.

And finally, there was the plan given by Jackie Hendrix. Jackie started his presentation with the caveat that it might not be the most popular with the department heads or the architectural firm; Lambert, Ezell and Durham but why not incorporate the current city hall building into the proposal to remodel and add onto? At this, your faithful reporter had to sit on my hands to keep from clapping. (Remember, my enthusiasm was outside the “circle of trust”) 

Sure enough, he almost got instant backlash from the department heads saying they were operating in cramped spaces as is. Andy Betterton started saying how the building department had found asbestos in the building. One or two other council people started objecting to no room for growth. But “Justified Jackie” was NOT deterred. He started explaining that he is only saying a study needs to be done of how much it would cost to incorporate the current building into any plans and to justify to the citizens of Florence that EVERY option for the new city hall had been considered.

It was a long meeting and seemed to go round and round in circles. The seating was appropriate. Like the story of the three bears, Jackie Hendrix’s proposal seemed JUST RIGHT! But the meeting ended, no decision was made on which way to go and Goldilocks still didn’t know how much the new city hall was costing her in tax money.





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