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Decisions made without oversight

To the editor:

I have been reading with interest the several letters to the editor that your paper has been so kind to print lately. To have such a forum for people like me to get things off of our chest is a gift. Thank you.

For 42 years I have resided in Marshall. My children attended school here and I have been a home owner, living on North Sixth Street for the bulk of those 42 years.

Over the past years I have witnessed what I have determined to be some very questionable city-promoted expenditures that I want to make a few comments about. It seems as if financial decisions are made with very little oversight or thought.

Many, if not all, of the recent street improvements have led to the neighbors having to hire attorneys to vet what the home owners perceive to be inaccurate assessments. East Marshall Street, Redwood Street, North Sixth (where I live), perhaps North 7th and for sure the new street behind what use to be the bowling alley. After the people took legal action, the assessments were lowered. If we wouldn’t have objected we would have been “stuck.” This is no way to govern.

The bridge that was built out on the bypass by the diversion channel leads to nothing because no one checked close enough to see what could be built there. What? How much was wasted on that deal?

For perhaps 15 years you have been clearing off the Corner Bar block (for how much total cost?) and yet nothing has developed there. Was that a dream also? Supposedly it was to provide a spot for a hotel/convention center, but now you are promoting one by the high school for $20,000,000. What? We the taxpayers are interested in a city-sponsored hotel? What if it fails? Who is to pay the bill? The interest alone on $20 million at 3 percent is $600,000 per year. That is a $1,640 per day. If there are 100 rooms and they are occupied every day (?), the interest only cost per room will be $16. If they have 60 percent occupancy it will be $22 each room. What about labor, power, sewer, water, maintenance, the real estate taxes and insurance?

It looks to me like home owners and other property owners are headed for trouble — that some in-depth thinking would have avoided. I somewhat apologize for the length of this letter — I couldn’t help it.

John Martinson

Marshall

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