Last weekend the entire council spent a little more than a day at the Westin in Bellevue for our annual planning retreat. As would be expected a good portion of our meeting was regarding Coal Creek Parkway (CCP). A few things came to light during our conversation that I want to share.
In my last post I wrote that I felt that options 2 and 3 for CCP reduced the financial risk to the city. After running the numbers during our weekend meeting I actually don't believe that to be true. Lets explore:
Option 1 - Complete both phases.
- The city has currently committed $3 Million in Cash
- We continue to solicit money from the State and Feds to cover the remaining $11 million
- Best case we only put in the $3 mil - worst case we must borrow an additional $8 Million
- But the road is complete
Option 2- Complete only Phase 3
- The city has currently committed $3 Million in Cash
- The City must reimburse the state (TIB) for the property and engineering costs for phase 2 ($6 Million)
- Because the road is not widened we would need to do about $2-3 million in improvements to the existing 2 lane road (repave, signal at 89th)
- In this case the city would be out $3 mil cash + need to borrow at least another $5 million
- And only the bridge is complete
Option 3 - Do nothing
- The city must reimburse TIB nearly $6 million for property and 3 mil for engineering
- Because the road is not widened we would need to do about $2-3 million in improvements to the existing 2 lane road (repave, signal at 89th)
- So end result would be the City paying $3 million in cash and needing to finance $8-9 million
- And in this option we would have no new road or bridge
In all three options the city has some level of financial obligation and in fact the one that has the apparent least amount of risk is option 1. This is because by continuing with the project it enables the city to continue to seek additional funding from outside sources like the State. The moment we say that we are not going to complete the project we not only give up our ability to ask for more money, we would also have to repay the money we have already been given.
I should also mention that according to a preliminary and conservative estimate of the financials, it appears the city could afford an $8 million line of credit. I would mean possibly restructuring some of our capital priorities but it is within the reasonable financial health of the city to take on that amount of debt if necessary.
3 comments:
The fourth option is that we do nothing until and unless the state and county step up to pay an appropriate share of the total cost. Non-Newcastle vehicles account for 90% of the traffic. The amounts under discussion are well within the budgets of larger entities. We few Newcastle residents should not be picking up so much of the tab for what is actually a regional thoroughfare.
If we go with option #1, what's the likelihood of the state and/or county reimbursing us. Not much is my guess. If we sit tight, it keeps the pressure on them to pay their fair share.
Newcastle needs to be spending its precious tax dollars on parks while there still is land to be had, not on easing the commute for folks from out of town. And the council needs to live within its resources instead of overreaching its tax base with pie-in-the-sky projects like a new city hall, a skateboard park, and someone else's highway.
It's time drop the delusions of grandeur and start behaving and spending like the small town we actually are.
Though non-Newcastle vehicles may account for 90% of the traffic (keeping in mind that no study has substantiated this claim), the congestion effects nearly 100% of the residents here; thus, Coal Creek is very much our highway and we have a responsibility to do something about it. It is difficult to argue that $30 million in outside funds is, somehow, not a "fair share" on a $44 million project.
Our residents will be none too happy if we forfeit the outside money already committed to the project, in addition to reimbursing the TIB $9 million...while we continue to sit in traffic. Making tough decisions is what leadership is all about...
Going with the 4th option might make sense if you:
1. Refuse to consider the loss of funding already committed from outside of Newcastle, and assume you can get more later.
2. Refuse to consider that already spent funds will need to be repaid, and assume you can get more later.
3. Refuse to consider the ever-increasing costs of the projects in the future, and assume the cost will remain the same - or go down.
4. Refuse to consider the impact that Coal Creek traffic has on the whole of Newcastle - and asume it can continue as-is.
I'm heartened that some of our leaders are grounded enough to see that the biggest problem facing Newcastle today can not be ignored - or even delayed. I'm sorry, but once one replaces assumptions with facts, and using only the facts, the only logical thing to do is to proceed with Option 1.
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