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11/29/2005: "No Money For Town-County Bld"

Superior Court Clerk Cahail presents the Town of Friday Harbor with $1.00 toward a new joint-use building

True to her word, Mary Jean Cahail recently appeared before the Friday Harbor Town Council to make a pitch for a joint-use building to be used by the Town and the County. Mary Jean had previously presented the idea to the BOCC Previous Story, and found support for the idea from the Board. But while the Town Council members thought it an interesting idea, the general sentiment was expressed by Councilman Wally Gillette's comment that he was "not very optimistic we can go forward with this" due to a lack of adequate funding being available for such a large capital expenditure.

County Commissioner Ranker was in the audience -after having presented the Council with a general up-date on county business- and decided to join the discussion by telling the Council members that "You have money and the County has land", and that it should be possible to move forward on the project to everyone's benefit. Unfortunately for the opinion, one of the council members pointed out to Ranker that, while the Town did indeed have money in the bank, the amount was far less that was already earmarked for upcoming capital improvements and repairs to their existing infrastructure and utilities, so the Town was in no position to become involved in spending money it did not have, to build a new administrative building on county land.

Town Administrator King Fitch said the Town has a need for additional office space, and had at one point commissioned a study of it's space requirements, and found they would need 10,000 square feet of space, but when the estimated cost came in at 1.3+ million to provide the space, the Town put the study on the shelf.

It now appears that unless the County and the Town can come up with a funding and/or a revenue source, the idea of a joint building will not become a reality in the near future. Mayor Boothman summed up the situation when, with a shrug of the shoulders, said "If the Town has not moved forward, and the County has no money…?"

Not to be easily deterred, Mary Jean walked up to Mayor Boothman at the end of her presentation and presented the Mayor with a one dollar bill, as the first donation to a Town construction fund to join in with the County on a joint-use building.