Did the York County Council ‘go around voters’ to pay for new admin building?

Plans to pass a multimillion-dollar bond to pay for building a new York County headquarters drew sharp criticisms from conservative activists on Monday.

The York County Council voted to approve a $108 million bond issue at Monday’s council meeting, with funding for a new county administration building in York getting a vote alongside a list of projects approved by voters in an $89.8 million bond issue in November.

But some conservatives who supported the Nov. 3 vote to fund mostly public safety-related county building issues said this wasn’t what they signed up for. Before November’s vote, the GPS Conservatives for Action PAC publicly endorsed the listed items on the referendum.

That decision wasn’t easy for a group that mostly opposes government spending, and GPS President Paul Anderko said he had an understanding from county leaders that the referendum projects would move forward without the county spending money on other projects he characterized as “wants” instead of “needs.” He sees the county’s plans to move forward with the new administration building as a betrayal.

“They turned around and stuck us in the butt,” Anderko said.

Anderko sent an email, copied to The Herald, to members of the County Council on Monday calling on them to separate the administration building, which was not included in November’s bond referendum, from the other projects and vote to move forward with it only after the referendum projects are completed.

A timeline included in the council’s meeting packet projected all the approved projects from November won’t be completed until late 2018.

A phone call to council chairman Britt Blackwell seeking comment had not been returned. But an emailed reply to Anderko’s letter said the new headquarters, which the council approved months before the bond referendum, would only end up costing taxpayers more money if the county delayed starting construction, and an expanded building will save the county money on rental offices some staff are forced to use now.

“Why would we vote on an admin. site location if we are not planning on building the building?!” Blackwell wrote in his reply.

Anderko dismissed concerns about a delay adding to the cost of the project.

“That’s pure bull----,” Anderko said. “They don’t have any plans for it, yet. They haven’t bid for the project.”

Councilman Robert Winkler, whose district includes York, also said passing both bonds at once would ultimately save the taxpayers money. He said crowded council meetings today could pose a security concern, since council meetings usually only have a single sheriff’s deputy present to handle large crowds.

“We’ve been told we could save a million dollars in underwriting by doing them both at one time,” Winkler said (although a representative from Cumming Construction Management later told council he would only say that “hundreds of thousands” would be saved by a combined bond issue at this time.)

“The longer the wait, the more expensive it will get,” Winkler said.

The council ultimately voted to approve the bond issue on Monday by a 6-1, with Councilwoman Christi Cox the only member to vote against it.

“We decided not to make this part of the bond referendum,” Cox said. “This taints the whole purpose of the administration building.”

Cox said the council was passing the motion without giving the public a chance to review it. But the council voted back in March to move forward with building a new administration center at the York site, even after Cumming presented studies suggesting an alternative site on Arrow Road would be more than $1 million cheaper and highlighted some environmental concerns about the Congress Street location. Cox voted with four other council members at the time in favor of the project.

Blackwell cited the lack of space for all the people who attend council meetings, where citizens are often sent to overflow rooms to watch a closed-circuit broadcast of the meeting. Anderko suggested the council move proceedings to the McCelvey Center, also in York, if they want to accommodate a larger crowd.

Beginning work on the administration building would require a $19 million bond issue, plus $5 million taken from the county’s fund balance, according to county documents. County Manager Bill Shanahan said the impact of the debt service on the bond would be equivalent to $6 a year on a $100,000 home.

Because it would cost less than 8 percent of York County’s total tax base, the council isn’t required to seek voter approval before issuing another bond.

Anderko, who worked with Blackwell on his campaign when he first ran for the county council, said he’s so upset about the administration building he’s considering running against Blackwell when he comes up for re-election next year.

“Britt knows this is a way to go around the voters to get his pet project built,” he said. “This is Britt’s Taj Mahal.”

This story was originally published December 7, 2015 at 9:59 PM with the headline "Did the York County Council ‘go around voters’ to pay for new admin building?."