Our View

Our View

Military Road expansion a perfect time for Marion to embrace change

Arkansas Highway Department’s plans to three-lane Military Road from Highway 77 to the interstate seems to have Marion officials scratching their heads as to what to do about relocating the city’s water department located in an old and small annex building that will clearly have to be torn down along with possibly some other structures at the busy intersection of Highway 77.

The building also services the city’s Chamber of Commerce which will also have to be relocated. Let’s face it, the location barely has enough parking spaces to accommodate users and obviously has served its time. And this highway project lends itself for city officials to consider upgrading all of its municipal buildings that serve the taxpaying citizens.

For instance, city hall is located directly across the street from the annex in an old bank building that also has very limited parking spaces especially during council meeting and municipal court.

One would think that with all the growth that is going on in Marion and the taxes being collected some thought would be given to building a modern city government complex that would accommodate city hall, the mayor’s office, offices for department heads as well as municipal court facilities.

With the modern new highway expansion to take place next year some thought might also be given to develop that area where the annex and current city hall are located into a city park of sorts that would compliment the area across the railroad tracks where the courthouse is located.

The mayor was quoted as saying they may consider using an old run down city-owned house behind the police station or “three” other privately owned locations he didn’t identify.

Fogleman said it is conceivable that the old house could be reconfigured to serve as a water department. The old house on Cedar Street was purchased in 2015 for a meager $33,000. If our memory serves us correctly at one time there was plans to use the old house for the water department’s use.

Rather than spending city tax dollars renovating the old Cedar Street property why not use that money as a portion of the cost to locate a suitable piece of highly visible property and build a complete municipal complex that would compliment the city’s image and the investment the private sector is putting into this county’s second and fastest growing municipality.

With that said there is no doubt the question as to exactly what would be the cost of a new city government complex, and more importantly, what would be the cost of the property if purchased from a private landowner; as well as the cost of construction.

While the answers to these important questions may be complex the point here is that this highway expansion provides an excellent time to begin thinking about bringing city government into the modern era and abandon the idea of retaining facilities that are outdated, antiquated and no longer suitable to meet the needs of this city’s future.

If the city can find the funds to build a new police station a few years back, build a new fire station and begin construction on modernizing the main fire station then we’re sure a viable financial plan can be developed to build this new city government complex. Why not give it some thought?