Council makes plans to preserve MTC

Is this the final meeting to determine the future of the Moorcroft Town Center (MTC)? After a series of public meetings and surveys throughout the last few years and discussions from as far back as 2013, Moorcroft's council has still been hesitant to take decisive action regarding the municipal building on the east end of town due to two opposing views.

On the one side are those who would like to see the entire building torn down, saving the town an ever-rising subsidizing cost. On the other side of the matter are the residents who want to retain all or part of the structure as part of the town's heritage.

At last Wednesday's public meeting, this was, again, the question, according to Mayor Ben Glenn.

"Over the last several years, we've all tried to come up with some plan to make this building pay for itself or to keep it, at least, breaking even; as everybody knows, money's tight and things are hard... I really feel, personally, instead of [continuing to] kick the can down the road, let's make a decision and dig our heels in and go."

Glenn reintroduced options formerly offered by DownTown Redevelopment Services as well as a couple of others including selling the entire building to a public/private enterprise or only to another public interest; in two of these options, town hall will move into the MTC and the current town hall will be sold to update the portion of the MTC planned for municipal use.

Councilman-elect Bob Stewart suggested tearing down the north (oldest) part of the structure and building assisted living units while going forward with the remaining MTC.

"Yes, the initial cost of tearing it down and getting [a] contract to build... but in the long run, it would benefit the town... I honestly think it's time to get off our hands and do something," he said.

Others expressed their concern for the senior center and food pantry with the dissolution of part of or the entire building. Penny Cruikshank spoke to one of these concerns, saying, "The senior center gets used a lot. We have two rooms and we also have the restrooms. We really like to have a place to go...If you tear that part down, there isn't going to be a place for us...We'd like to have something put in order instead of, every other week [someone] saying we're going to tear this down ' or 'we're going to...' Making a decision is a good thing, in my opinion."

Glenn concurred vigorously, "I would like to see the seniors stay right where they're at and keep this building moving forward...If we sell this, we have no say at all."

"We have parks so people will go to our parks," the mayor explained his reason for fighting to keep this building. "We have a gym so, hopefully, we can have people to come into our gym. There are certain things in a town that, maybe, don't always make us money or even costs us money, but we still have them and I still believe it's a good thing to have them."

Council member-elect Heidi Humpal agreed with Glenn's long-held belief that the MTC represents Moorcroft and would like to find a way to save it. "Once you lose something, it is so hard; we lost the swimming pool [and] I don't want to see this lot turned into a park, we've got plenty of [those]."

Lifetime town resident Shirley Nicolen spoke with equal conviction about the money the town spends on the building every fiscal year (the amount is in the neighborhood of $50,000 per year at this time).

"This building has cost beaucoup bucks – a lot of [money] has been used to keep it as it is and an appraisal of the property found that it would cost millions of dollars to remodel...We have to figure out how much this is costing when there isn't any income...If we could sell it and get somebody who wanted to do something with it."

She also spoke of the taxes not collected because the building is municipally owned. When asked for her ideas on where to locate the seniors if the MTC were sold, after realizing this is the last place owned by the town that could be used for the purpose, she stated, "We're not a charity."

The town is still actively seeking funding "to see if there's something that is 80/20 or a 90/10 matching grant," according to the mayor.

"You have to have the community and the people who have the drive and will take the initiative to stay on top of the grant search," Humpal advocated help from community members.

"It has to be actively done. This building has a lot of potential if we actually push for it, I don't think it's ever been pushed for, it just kind of gets put on the back burner."

She voiced her agreement with Nicolen's argument about the amount of money the town is presently spending on the building with no practical return, "But we have to find a viable solution to stay on the right path pursuing it. Where it's at right now – stagnant – that's not working, we all know that, but I do hate to see it go...What if somebody comes in and [buys] it, then, we really don't like anything that goes on here?"

Public Works Director Cory Allison, speaking as a citizen, shared his opinion on the matter of moving town hall to the MTC.

"I believe the only way we can make this place work is if we move town hall up here and sell [the existing town hall building] and that covers what we're paying for the heat and all that. If we don't move Town Hall up here, it's not feasible...to have this place and that place."

Plans have already been established to install some type of garage for parking police vehicles and search suspect automobiles.

After further discussion, the group tentatively arrived at a decision supported by the majority present – the next "baby step", according to Glenn, is to move town hall on site, selling the current municipal building on North Big Horn Avenue.

The council did not vote on the matter at the meeting immediately after this, but plans to do so at the next assembly of the governing body on Wednesday, February 8, at 7 p.m.