County Board Member Decries Downtown Money Pit

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcoming back to the program. Douglas County Commissioner Jim Cavanaugh,
mister Commissioner, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Coody, Gary, thanks for having me on BET.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
I like to get a periodic update on what I've
always called the greatest cram down in the history of
Douglas County government, and that's the new Downtown Juvenile Justice Center, which,
as far as I can tell, is still is not
serving as a juvenile justice center.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Right, that's correct, Gary, It is empty. It was completed
two and a half years ago and it's never been
occupied by the style.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
And what does it cost? What does it cost us
every day?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
The running cost keeps multiplying because we're paying on bonds
and we're paying on utilities. So the current outstanding cost
is north of one hundred and sixty two million. This
is a project that so it's first proposed at eighty
seven million and was proposed for sixty seven children, although

(01:07):
we have ninety one children in custody today and opened
with a capacity for about forty five children. So right
from the beginning it was inadequate. And the folks were
told repeatedly before a shovel was in the ground that
it was inadequate, so it was built. All the contracts

(01:32):
were let without bids, they were all paid, all the
consulting agreements were paid. But we've expended one hundred and
sixty two million dollars without a single child being benefited
or served at all, and the largest property tax increased

(01:52):
this century for the Douglas County homeowners.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Well that's great. Does this ever come up talking?

Speaker 2 (02:02):
I bring it up. I bring it up continually to
the discomfort of by board members who proposed it. And
I think that the only solution that we have is
from the voters who need to recognize who was in
support of this total fiasco and how much it's costing
them every year, really every month, because we have utility

(02:24):
bills piling up every single month. Uh and we've paid
well over a million dollars just in utilities for an
empty building that sits there unused.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
I mean, you have to have people running there and
maintain the building just to keep the systems running, right.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
We do. We do, And we have staff at the
Douglas County Public Property and staff at the Omaha Douglas
County Building Commission who maintained this building. You know, it's
in pristine shape because it's never been used. But you've
got to come in and you know, turn on the
lights and the faucets and flush the toilets just to

(03:08):
make sure that everything is properly functioning. And you got
to pay the electric and the gas and the heat
and the air conditioning every single month for not a
single person. This is a total fiasco and we need
to stop this kind of waste in order to control
our property taxes. I've been proposing property taxes decreases for

(03:31):
the last five years and we got a minor one
last year. We need to have more of that and
stop this waste. We need to offload this building for
somebody else to use it, because it will never be
used by Douglas County. Wow.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
In the meantime, I wonder has there been any talk
are there Is it possible to find an alternate use
for it that would throw off a little income. I
don't know at overnight, you know, for travelers that just
want bare bones like a like a hotel. I have
never been in there. I don't know what the facilities
are like. But if somebody just flop for a night

(04:07):
for fifty bucks, you know, it's it's a jail.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
And so it has a very limited use without a
massive redo. Believe me, I've looked at alternative uses from
a mental health facility to a homeless facility and on
and on and on, and basically it's a jail. And
so with lockdown cells and all the facilities that security

(04:32):
facilities have, it would be difficult without a massive investment
in a brand new building. So what will probably end
up doing, and this is making you know, lemonade out
of some big lemons, is trying to find somebody who
needs jail capacity and to do a whole harmless lead

(04:52):
that would at least stop the bleeding. I mean, we
just need to quit charging the taxpayers of Douglas County
for something that to tow a white elephant.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Well, is this going to affect public safety? Commissioner? Look,
the only thing you guys are really responsible for are
streets and safety. And if this affects the Douglas County
Sheriff's budget, that's a political problem.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yeah. I think that the public safety is not impaired
because we own a rather substantial youth center of forty
second woe Worth that we've been operating for decades and
that I proposed using much less money than has been
expended on this Sciasco to refurbish. Well, they wasted all
the refurbishing money now and we still have this youth

(05:41):
center with ninety one kids in it and the average
population this year at forty second in Woolworth, and we
should have in the beginning used a fraction of the
money of the one hundred and sixty two million that's
now been committed to refurbish it for those kids. We
are still in the business of providing secure facilities at

(06:02):
the youth center at forty second Street, and we'll continue
to do that. So on top of this empty fiasco building,
you're paying for an operating youth center and have been
all along.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
You've been a voice in a wilderness. Jim, thanks for
the time ons always this morning, and we will keep
an eye on that, of course, see if any movement
is ever made to find another use