NEPAblogging - Lackawanna County Spending

The recent announcement that the County plans to add onto the courthouse building has been eating at my brain. Given the inexplicable love-fest going on between the County and the owner of the Scranton Electric building, and the failed plans about building a frankenstein addition onto same, in order to consolidate County staff and operations in one location near the square, I suppose the planned additions are really no big shocker.

But, $48.5 million dollars? Holy crap! The building on the corner of Adams and Linden, across the Street from Farley's has been vacant for months, if not a year or two. And given the ongoing discussions of renting space in the Scranton Electric building, there's clearly no short supply of office space around the Courthouse Square. Shitballs, people...this is downtown Scranton we're talking about! Vacant buildings are the city's most abundant resource. (Though, admittedly, "parking garages" may soon usurp that title.)

So, given that the justification to slap up more square footage isn't exactly clear, let's flip the proposal over and look at it from the cost perspective. Once again, $48.5 million dollars. The same year, the County suddenly announced they had to raise taxes by 48%. Let's just put this in some perspective, why don't we? In December, the Scranton Times reported that the 2005 Lackawanna County budget outlays were going to total $96.6 million dollars. So, in a year where we find the County hiking taxes to a degree that seems to warrant flinging our metaphorical tea into the harbor, the Commissioners are proposing spending an amount equal to 50% of that same year's County budgetary outlay to build more office space in a city overflowing with vacant buildings.

Yeah, that makes sense.

You may now return to your regularly-scheduled websurfing.

***Update*** The Times-Tribune Editorial board has followed my bold lead and taken this issue on as well.

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