Legislature Changed Its Mind, or Made A Mistake!

Recently residents of Tioga County received a letter from the Tioga County Legislature explaining why the legislature has found it necessary to consolidate its four existing facilities into a new "centralized" building to be built on the south side of Route 434.

While the six-page letter was informative and gave some insight into the thinking processes of the legislature it was far more interesting for what it did not say.

In the six pages the cost of construction and maintenance of the new building was never mentioned once, which makes cost comparisons by any of the recipients of the letter impossible. Also not mentioned were the costs of retaining the five named consulting firms hired by the legislature to provide analysis or carry out the legislatures desires.

Of the four buildings targeted for abandonment, the rationales that are given are:

1. Building one is rented. We are left to guess as to why that makes it unacceptable.

2. Building two has some duct work problems, the halls are too spacious and the older (1923 era) wooden infrastructure does not look modern enough. Its basement has also been known to flood in heavy rains which explains why the legislature chose to house the county computer facility with its expensive equipment in the same basement.

3. Building three does not suffer from the antique problem of building number two. lt is merely old. It was built 20 years ago and was specifically engineered and designed to house the Social Services Department. Because it has the misfortune of having by design been attached to an old house which has suddenly acquired a foundation problem, it too is now obsolete and unuseable for the purpose for which it was designed and built.

It is slated for purposes of consolidation to be moved from the north side of the village to the south side away from the recently built Public Safety Building which was moved to the north side of the village from downtown where it was unfortunately close to the other county facilities.

4. Building four is an easier matter. It only needs $4.7 million to fix it.

In responding to possible alternatives to building, the legislatures' approach is to attack any suggestions with surveys and arguments that seem to defy common sense. One alternative mentioned was a possible vacating middle school in Owego. While it may or may not be a valid site, the arguments used is that it is inappropriate because it is not conducive to becoming an office building and would need to be torn down. This begs the question of why three of the four above mentioned buildings which are used for offices were not torn down first, because they too, are former school buildings. Also mentioned were access problems, which leaves one to wonder how all those teachers, employees, parents and students ever made it to the school over the years.

Acquisition and modernizations of the above four buildings as well as previous consolidations and constructions have all been done while many of the present members of the legislature have been in office. We as taxpayers have spent considerable amounts of money over the past 25 years to update, modernize and maintain county facilities only to be told that now the legislature has changed its mind, or made a mistake, or has tobacco money.

Perhaps most disconcerting is the letter's inference that this has been an open process. It has not. It has been a manipulated process where citizens are given a chance to "vent" in front of legislators who refuse to engage in debate. Then canned responses to selected questions are mailed to us in six page letters (presumably at our expense) after the decisions have already been made. We are told we are better off for this.

If the purpose of the letter was to inspire confidence, inform the public or answer unanswered questions it has unfortunately missed its mark by a mile. It has on the other hand created a whole new set of questions, such as, "who are the unnamed investors that have put up the conditional funding to pay for new construction and why, after mentioning by name every consulting firm available to support their other arguments, did the legislature choose not to mention the names of the "strings attached" investors who are funding it?"