City Council Budget Work Session

Date: April 5, 2021



Even though AZ Health Supply presented to the city council to reconstruct DustBowl without getting much help from the City, seems like the City staff are still budgeting or at least considering to budget for doing the project with taxpayers money. Which seems to be consuming almost 1/2 of City's annual budget without any guarantee for return.



In last Monday's budget work session, Schwann Hanns asked Mayor Powell and the council members questions related to the numbers or budget related to the Dust Bowl Theater. Seems like the budget was not based on the actual numbers and not considering the most updated estimates and presentation.


Schwann Hanns


"I just noticed a couple of numbers about the Dust Bowl in this budget. I just want to know where it comes from because it was not familiar to me and I want to know if it's budgeted because it is a big number"


Mayor Powell


 "The $100,000? I think that's just a placeholder. That's always been there."


Harvey Krauss:


"If the council wishes to demolish the building, I think originally we had a $100,000 but it looks like it is closer to $200,000 if we want to do that. And then the larger number out there ($2.5 Million) was to create a vanilla shell if we want to pursue that. So that's the outer use. That's where the numbers came from". "The demo cost more than $200,000, so we might need to increase that. If that's what the council wishes to do. But we are still now soliciting proposals to see what's going to happen. So, they are placeholders at this point. 


Mayor Powell: 


"There's also on the Dust Bowl placeholder for 2024 for $2.5 (Million).


Schwann Hanns:


"So, the numbers, they are not coming from a study?"


Mayor Powell


"No, they are just placeholders."



Source: City Council Budget Work Session, April 5, 2021 https://eloyaz.granicus.com/GeneratedAgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=53