What a long, strange trip it’s been – from the earliest musings about a Welcome Center in Enumclaw to this week’s drop-dead, gotta-do-it-now vote by the City Council.
The notion of a Welcome Center in town, to match one already built in Naches at the eastern terminus of state Route 410, sprang to life more than a dozen years ago. Since then, it’s been kicked around by at least four incarnations of the seven-member council.
Finally, a decision had to be made. The council had to act Monday night to guarantee the city’s share of the anticipated $4.6 million total cost. To keep the ball rolling, the city had to allot nearly $1.4 million.
All indications are the council was poised to take that fiscal leap.
Had the city’s governing body desired to bail out, there were at least two prime opportunities in recent weeks. City administration had once recommended that the city cut its losses and abandon the project. And earlier this month, Councilman Hoke Overland suggested the same route. He claimed the city would be tackling a debt it cannot afford, adding that a desired tenant will not be stepping forward and finishing with the belief that city merchants are not looking kindly on a Welcome Center build at the outward edge of town.
Overland’s motion to scuttle the Welcome Center now and forever received just one vote – his.
Existing plans call for a two-story building of 7,000 square feet, constructed on city-owned land between the Expo Center fieldhouse and the golf course.
The only likely source of income for the Welcome Center is Fund 180, a section of the city’s annual budget. The fund was propped up by the sale of the old Industrial Skills building (now home to Hill Aerospace) and the sale of the land under the Sears building. The city also owns the land that is home to the Park Center Hotel and collects lease payments, which go to Fund 180.
City Administrator Chris Searcy said there’s approximately $1.5 million now sitting in Fund 180.
The fund had been depleted a couple of years ago, Searcy said, by a need to support the library and the fire department, before the affirmative votes to annex into the King County Library System and Fire District 28.
The money has since been restricted, by council vote, to pay for building or land acquisitions.
