My dad loved to fish. How much? When he passed away in 2005, an inspection of his wallet revealed just one photograph. It wasn’t a photo of his parents, mama, any of his six kids or 13 grandkids. It was a grainy, yellowed photo of a 44-pound catfish he had caught sometime back in the 1950s.
Fishing was his main hobby, and when I was little I would accompany him on his fishing trips, standing on the banks of a pond or lake as he fished, mainly for bream.
All his life, he had fished from the bank, but as far back as I can remember, Dad wanted a fishing boat.
My dad worked for the city water department. Mama worked in a garment factory. Neither of them ever made more than $8 per hour and with six kids, there wasn’t much disposable income. Dad worked a second job and sold a lot of the vegetables he grew to supplement the family income. That extra income probably would have allowed him to borrow the couple thousand dollars he needed to buy a fishing boat. But, like so many people who grew up in the Depression era, dad was cautious when it came to borrowing and the idea of paying interest on a loan bothered him. Better to wait until you can save up the money than borrow it, he figured.
I thought about dad while reading the account of Tuesday’s Columbus City Council in The Dispatch. By a 4-2 vote, the council approved a $4.4 million Propst Park improvement project that including borrowing $3 million to go with the $1.4 million in parks money the city already has. The city will pay for the loan from the annual $400,000 it will receive from the 2% food/beverage tax over the next 10 years. So it’s not a matter of whether the city can make the payments, but rather if it is a wise move.
Chief Financial Officer James Brigham informed the council that the accrued interest from a $3 million loan over a 10-year period would come to about $1 million. He said the city could expect to pay about $200,000 for fees associated with securing the loan.
That’s a $1.2 million cost to the city for a $3 million loan.
Ward 3 councilman Rusty Greene, along with Jacqueline DiCicco in Ward 6, voted against the plan.
It was Greene’s reasoning that reminded me of dad.
“It makes my stomach hurt to think we’re about to spend all that money in interest,” Greene said. “That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
I’m thinking Greene probably grew up in a home like mine, where the admonition “neither a borrower nor a lender be” was revered.
I think if my dad were in charge of this, he would ask for an itemized list for the planned improvements, then try to determine which should be a priority and, finally, see which of those items could be paid for with cash on hand. Then, he would save up that $400,000 until major parts components of the plan could be paid for with cash on hand.
The majority of the council did not see it this way, favoring immediacy over prudence. In borrowing the $3 million the city’s total debt will go up to $31 million. To put that in perspective, the entire city budget for the current year is $25 million. That should be enough to make anyone a little nervous.
I understand the council wants to improve Propst Park for the benefit of the city’s residents. But it’s better to pay as you go in this instance. Certainly there are things $1.4 million can buy that will significantly approve the park.
I’m sure that’s how my dad would have looked at this.
After dad retired and all the kids were on their own, he finally did get that fishing boat. I think waiting for it all those years made him appreciate it all the more.
I think that’s a lesson that seems to have somehow eluded the majority of the council.
They want what they want when they want it and taxpayers are going to pay for that lack of patience.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is ssmith@cdispatch.com.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is ssmith@cdispatch.com.
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