Lame-duck City Council will discuss timelines on flooded building decisions

The city's lame-duck City Council - with four meetings left in its life - is slated to discuss a timeline on Wednesday evening to make giant decisions on the city's key flood-damaged buildings, the library, central fire station, City Hall, Public Works Building and animal control shelter.

It's certainly possible that the incoming nine-member council, which will have three new members, will think differently about some of these decisions than the outgoing council.

Mayor-elect Ron Corbett and incoming at-large council member Chuck Swore, for instance, have made it clear that they will not back the construction of a new city hall.

Corbett has criticized a consultant's cost projections for a new city hall. Those projections have factored in operating costs over 50 years, and Corbett has said estimates for longer than a few years are a “fantasy.”

There does seem to be some uniformity of thought with current council members and incoming ones that the city ought to first concentrate on the central fire station and library.

Among key decisions on the central fire station and the library are where new ones should be built. As now planned, both will move to new locations from their flood-damaged ones.