I attended this meeting today that councilor Jamison held. It was actually quite informative.
Greg talked about the different projects going on in the SW district. He also discussed the possible indoor pool at Spellerberg Park. Greg said the city is performing a mail survey right now of the residents in that neighborhood to get a feeling of what they want. Greg also suggested that exploring an indoor pool at the Sanford Sports Complex may be a better idea. Ironically, former councilor Bob Jamison (who attended the meeting) agreed on my idea of locating a public indoor pool at either ONE or ALL of the city high schools. As Bob put it, “We should be encouraging lifetime sports activities in our schools, and swimming is one of them.”
The scary part of the meeting was the discussion of the city’s debt ceiling. Jamison said it is $160 million dollars away. Once that ceiling is gone, we will have to start borrowing money for things like road repairs and sewers. I wonder if we can use the EC as equity – more like a liability.
One other fun fact. Out of the $51 million collected on the 2nd Penny, only $36 million can be spent next year. Why? Because $15 million of that goes toward principal and interest on debt the city has already accumulated.
See what happens when you have two consecutive credit card executives as mayor . . . Remember, when Munson took office the city debt was hovering at $90 million. It is 4x that now. At that rate, our debt ceiling will disappear in about 18 months.