DEAR EDITOR:
As a lifelong resident of Warren and as a supporter of Mayor Franklin, I'm not happy with this one-stop office building idea that he is pushing on us.
I live in what I once thought was the center of the city. A while back, I started hearing my neighborhood referred to as "Area 51." Is this because the administration, police and the citizens don't know what is going on here and don't want or care to know?
I want to know this from my mayor and my councilman. Why should we try to impress people with a multi-million dollar office complex when prostitutes sell themselves at all hours of the day four blocks from the current city hall? Why should we be making some sort of statement with a state of the art office building when drug houses sit within five blocks of the police station, with even less blocks between them and our high school?
We have a city where prostitutes and drug dealers openly strut their stuff within a five-minute walk from city hall and the police station and our elected officials want to borrow millions to have a nicer, more convenient office. More convenient for whom? What a bunch of shenanigans.
Before they expect me and my neighbors to smile and look pleased because city workers are all sitting in one shiny, happy place, I want my councilman and my mayor to tell me their plans to clean up the center of this city. Here's a clue: it is going to take more than another organizer-led meeting, excuses about hands being tied and spending stimulus money on fake brick crosswalks downtown.
There is simply no excuse to go into this much debt. And if this goes forward? Anyone but this councilman and mayor come next election if this happens.
Hazel Butcher
Warren