Provide transparency on project

To the Editor:

I am a recently retired long-time resident and taxpayer of Fairmont. I have lived in this town for almost 60 years. At a recent City Council meeting, City Engineer, Troy Nemmers, presented information about the infrastructure issues and concerns facing Fairmont.

He stated we have 75 miles of streets and 82 miles of waterlines with about 50 percent of the city’s utilities done in the 1950’s and 1960’s that are now 70 years old. Troy said slip-lining 1.5 miles or 2 percent of the 75 miles of streets would cost $247,000. If you look at the total cost of 75 miles it would be over $12 million dollars. If we could spread this over 20 years it would come to $617,000 per year with no escalation costs or interest figured into the cost.

He went on to say if the entire street and all of the utilities were replaced it would cost as much as $1,000 per foot. If you figure 75 miles times 5,280 feet, you would come up with 396,000 feet of total replacement needed. Multiply that by $1,000 per foot would be $396,000,000. Spreading this project out over 60 years with no major failures would cost $6.5 million per year, again with no escalation costs or financing figured in. This would further increase the tax burden upon the citizens of Fairmont. We have committed to five major projects that I can think of in the past 10 years. They are as follows from various Sentinel articles:

• $31 million for a new water filtration plant

• $8.5 million for a new public works building

• $40 million for a justice center

• $50 million for upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant

• $4.5 million for repairs to the courthouse dome

• $6.5 million for the school vocational expansion

• $$$ millions for upgrading buildings to meet current codes (e.g

ADA, etc.)

These figures also do not include escalation or finance costs. I bring these facts up because with such a large amount of projected expenditures, we still have a group that wants to build a community center. This construction was originally projected to cost $40 million in a 2016 study by Bolton and Menk, page 35. And from the 2019 Ballard King study, page 66, it could have possible operating cost deficits of $400,000 to $500,000 per year, which is much like the current aquatic park only on a much larger scale.

My question is, if we have to get $6 million from donations, which were not all for construction costs to get $14 million from the one-half percent sales tax, which we don’t have at this time, and must borrow against, where is the additional $10 million to $20 million coming from? No one is addressing this issue or willing to face the fact it needs to be brought to a fair and transparent vote of the citizens of Fairmont before continuing with this project. Thank you.

Bill Cieslinski

Fairmont