By Jeff B. Flinn
Managing Editor

Windcrest residents on Monday have the opportunity to listen to — or sound off about — a $7.465 million proposal that would lead to construction of a new City Hall facility on 23 acres of land in a different part of town.

The city’s plans to issue certificates of obligation worth $7.465 million are the subject of a public hearing at 7 p.m. Monday at the Takas Park Civic Center during the Windcrest City Council’s regular monthly meeting.

While city officials are anxious to hear from their citizenry, they will take their time to explain the city’s needs and the finances involved in the project.

“Part of the briefing looks at six different scenarios and options that we looked at,” Mayor Jack Leonhardt said Monday. “And a location is going to be covered. We’re going to cover the previous meetings where those discussions have taken place.”

The city is eyeballing a parcel of about two dozen acres adjacent to Home Depot and an OfficeMax store on Windsor Hill for its future City Hall.

“We want people to come with an open mind, and to understand that we are moving in a positive direction, and we have some exciting things coming up,” he added.

The $7.465 million worth of certificates of obligation will provide for purchasing and building a new City Hall; renovating the existing City Hall into a public safety complex; acquire, purchase and equip a new dormitory facility for the city’s fire department; acquire green space; and pay professional services related to all four matters.

“What we’re doing is taking the existing tax notes and just refunding those and combining the two together. The whole petition only pertains to the $7.465 million,” he said.

The city has five more years to pay off debt incurred to conduct road repair. While the $7.465 million would not raise taxes above the current level, the sale of the Cos would extend the 5 years to 20 and allow the city to continue with street repairs while carrying on with the new plans.

Leonhardt said part of the public hearing discussion will include a historic look at the current City Hall, built in 1970 for a crew of 13 city workers. After 1970, two expansion projects, in the early 1980s and again in 1997, were performed in order to accommodate city growth.

“Now we have an Econo-mic Development Corp., a tech manager and an emergency management person. We didn’t have a dispatch office until 1997, which was part of that expansion,” the mayor said.

“We’ve had two fires in the building, because the electrical circuitry is so out of date. We’ve had mold problems, because the roof has leaked. We’ve had roof leaks damage equipment, and (the structure) was built to residential standards; it is no longer possible to expand the electrical capabilities in this building,” he added.

Those planning to attend the public hearing will hear a report on a professional study performed in 2007. The conclusion, Leonhardt said, “was that we needed almost double the space, without considering growth of municipal court and without acquiring 229 acres of businesses and potential 2,000-3,000 residents. That wasn’t even considered in that study.”

Also included in the hearing will be a review of an explanation of the financing plan, which will be posted for review on the city’s Web site the next day.

He is aware that a petition opposing the $7.465 million proposal is already circulating.

“We just want everybody to have all the facts, to know what our plans are, before they sign any petition,” he said. “If a valid petition is received, that kind of throws it up in the air as to what we might do. On the 25th, we’ll know whether we have a petition or not.”

A special meeting Aug. 25, also at the Takas Park facility, brings the issue before the council for an up-or-down vote on any plan to move forward on the $7.465 mill amount.