Deerfield-News.com-Deerfield Beach,Fl-HOW DEERFIELD BEACH IS STEALING $37 MILLION OF THE CITIZEN’S MONEY AND RISKING OUR CHILDRENS FUTURE .
The City of Deerfield Beach Commission in the late hours of the night on August 15, 2017 approved item # 23 on a 25 item agenda giving the City Manager permission to go ahead and sink the city $37 million more dollars into debt. Instead of having $57 million of debt on the books presently the city will now have $94 million of debt, a whopping 65% increase. And how will the city pay back this huge new debt? They will take $2 million per year out of the general fund for the next 25 years. That is $2 million per year that is not available for our parks & recreation, aquatics, after school youth programs, new senior citizen programs or raises for our hard working city employees! That means the city will spend $50 million in total over the next 25 years repaying this new $37 million loan. What will the citizens of Deerfield Beach get for this $50 million payout? 1) $8 million will go towards a new community center to replace the Tigner Center. The existing building totals 5,000 square feet. The City Manager wants to replace this building with a new 13,000 square foot facility at a cost of $8 million. That equals a building cost of $615 per square foot. As a point of comparison you can buy a luxurious brand new condo on the ocean in Broward County for much less than $615 per square foot. The City Manager was quoted as saying we needed the new community center with a brand new banquet room because among other reasons ” it is an embarrassment for the City to have to raise the basketball backboards” when having banquets currently at The Leo J. Robb Memorial Gymnasium. 2) $9 million will go towards building a new senior center to replace the NE Focal Point Center. Nowhere in ANY information released so far to the citizens does it mention what size building & facilities we are getting for our $9 million price tag! While there is definitely a need to upgrade the aging facilities at NE Focal Point let’s look at how many people are being served at the Center. All the following information was taken from the City Of Deerfield Beach AUDITED Financial Statements (page 120) for the year ending September 30, 2016: Average daily child care attendance – 12 ; Average daily adult daycare attendance – 5 ; Average daily adult Alzheimer’s attendance – 28. With so little information being provided by the city to the citizens it is virtually impossible to do a cost benefit analysis to see if it is worth spending $9 million dollars of the citizens money to benefit what appears to be a small group of people. 3) $3.5 million to remodel city hall. Since funding to replace the leaking roof at city hall is coming from a different funding source I am at a total loss to explain how fixing some bathrooms and making the facility more ADA compliant could cost the taxpayers $3.5 million dollars. No cost estimates or a list of what was to be remodeled was supplied to the citizens. 4) $12 million for street resurfacing. Again no information provided to the citizens as to how many linear feet of road will be resurfaced. 5) $4 million will go towards refinancing existing debt. This small amount actually makes sense as the city will save money in reduced interest costs. If the city walked into a bank to borrow $37 million and gave the miniscule amount of information provided I doubt the bank would approve the loan request. However the citizens of Deerfield Beach are being asked to approve increasing our debt by 65% and saddling our children with $2 million in annual payments for the next 25 years. If you are as outraged as I am over the City Commissions actions late at night on August 15th we have one last chance to stop it. The City Commission must vote one last time on September 5, 2017 on whether to sink our city $37 million further into debt. Please show up at this meeting where you will have 3 minutes to give your opinion or send an email to your Commissioner opposing this reckless behavior. The future well being of the citizens of Deerfield Beach may depend on it! THIS IS FROM A CONCERNED DEERFIELD BEACH RESIDENT!
