Capital Improvements Budget Up Tomorrow

On June 14, 2016, the Council will consider the proposed Capital Improvements Budget (CIB). The proposed CIB is here, and proposed CIB ordinance is here.

The Council's Office just posted the amendments that have been proposed by Councilmembers. I have proposed two amendments that would delete items from the CIB. Neither is related to my suggestion last week to delete items from the Capital Spending Plan.

One of my proposed amendments to the CIB would be to remove the $110 million flood wall that was removed from last year's CIB. I never really understood the project last year. To me, if you build a wall on part of one side of a river, if it works, it means you are flooding another part of town. There was a significant public discussion about this last year, and there has been none this year.

I think there should be some public discussion about this project. That's why I filed the amendment.

(I pulled the vote on this from last year – for Council members who were in office a year ago, 5 voted to remove the flood wall from the CIB, 7 to keep it in, and 1 abstained.)My other proposed amendment would remove a duplicate entry from the CIB. There are two entries in the CIB to build a new Sheriff's Office headquarters (17GS0018 and 17SO0001). This amendment deletes one of the duplicate entries. Both Metro Finance and the Sheriff have told me that they are okay with deleting the duplicate.