The city and county haven't always gotten along as much as they should, even when both were run by Republicans. Now, the city seems set on undoing one of the few good city-county cooperative efforts:
Allen County officials have begun to prepare for the city's move from the building that the two governments have shared for four decades.
“I met with the mayor (Tuesday), and it looks like the city will be moving out (of the City-County Building),” County Commissioner Bill Brown said. “We're not shooing them out, but we are looking at our options.”
[. . .]
The mayor has told me and others that the price on the Renaissance building has come down. Price is one thing, but would this be the best move? We'd be going into a building that's even older than the one we're in now.”
Brown, meanwhile, has said Renaissance owner George Huber has described the city's move as a “done deal."
Even if it could be shown this move would save money, the savings would have to be weighed against the loss of convenience for taxpayers who have been used to going to one building for both city and county government needs. But it looks like it could even be costlier than the current arrangement, which makes the whole idea even worse. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Comments
I think this part of your argument is flawed:
"the savings would have to be weighed against the loss of convenience for taxpayers who have been used to going to one building for both city and county government needs"
I think the percentage of folks who go to the CCB that have to see BOTH City and County offices is going to be very small.
Plus, think of all the money the County could save by consolidating ALL of their offices in one building-currently they are spread all over the place.
You might be right that I'm overestimating how many people use both city and county services. But I'm not sure how many other county offices might actually move in -- note that Brown is also talking about paying clients that might help make up for the loss of the city's lease payments. Maybe what we need is a thorough and honest joint-needs study that looks not only at the functions of various government offices but also at the use patterns by taxpayers.