The Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency will hold a budget workshop Thursday at 9:00 a.m. at City Hall. It’s shaping up as a contentious one.
Members of the Tallahassee City Commission and the Leon County Commission together form Blueprint’s board of directors. The last Blueprint meeting in May featured a clash over the proposed Northeast Park. It’s slated for the district of County Commissioner Brian Welch, and he’s been fighting for the more expensive option at $18 million.
“I definitely think the park is going to happen,” he said. “I think now it’s just a matter of what does it look like? Its costs have gone up, as have all of the projects. In fact, the Northeast Park is certainly the least increase that the projects have experienced.”
He’s frustrated that the park wasn’t approved at Blueprint’s last meeting in May due to a dispute over its cost.
“I think it sets a precedent if we start doing autopsies on these projects to try and re-analyze exactly what happened to them or how they got where they’re going,” Welch said. “Essentially, it’s just wasting time. The people of the northeast have waited 20 years for this park, and it should have been settled three months ago and so we’ve waited another three months. Well, every day we wait, the cost goes up.”
The budget workshop will examine all the Blueprint projects, especially the Airport Gateway intended as an appealing entrance to the city. On Monday, County Commissioner Christian Caban wrote the other board members, criticizing the increase in the Airport Gateway’s price from roughly $82 million to $123 million.
Caban called the project “another example of ballooning costs.” He wants to see those funds go to improving roads on the south side of town, part of which he represents.
