Thanks, But No Banks

That was the general consensus of city council at Monday's workshop to discuss Mayor Brookshire's  plans to buy the old Rexall building. The workshop was called to discuss the proposal by Citizens Bank to buy the current city hall. Brookshire had been advocating selling city hall to the bank and leasing the old Rexall building temporally till a new city hall could be built in three to five years.

Councilman Aikens was the first to speak against the Brookshire plan followed closely by all the other council men. Everyone agreed that a new city hall was needed but to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to make a sale the current building just didn't seem to be the best way to go.

Council directed the Mayor to send a letter to Citizens Bank thanking them for their interest but declining their $726,000.00 offer. The city will proceed on with acquiring the property across the street on Broadway between Hill Street and Town Creek for the future city hall building. Brookshire informed the council that approximately $200,000.00 had been spent so far on the proposed site and he felt that the city would have all the property purchased by July first. He estimated the cost to acquire all the necessary property would be about a million dollars.

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