DEAR EDITOR:
It's time for Warren City Council to stand up for the people. If you ask most of the people who live in Warren they will tell you that they don't feel safe in Warren any more. I have and idea. Instead of building a $10 million building to house what, 75 people, take the $700 thousand payment and hire 10 more police officers.
This could be set up for a drug unit. Warren is short 25 percent of its police force, and the first thing to go was the drug unit, the biggest problem in Warren. Where is the money coming from? If you have that kind of money to waste on a building why is the police force down so far and the fire department using a federal grant to pay for part of there salaries.
In 2006, when I was on city council, the same one-stop idea was floated then. I did my homework and found out that federal matching money was allowed for a new building, feds pay 60 percent and Warren pays 40 percent. I have a second idea. The municipal building can add at least two more floors on it, it was built that way for future growth. That was in 2006. Has anyone checked on those possibilities?
In the last three years, water, sewer, auto tags and trash collection have gone up, during the biggest downturn in history. The next will be to raise the city income tax, because the city will not have enough money to keep Warren safe.
I will fight it if city council wastes tax dollars on a new building. This is not the time to waste tax money as people continue to leave the city.
Robert Holmes III
Warre