The Editor,
So, I will first say that I fully appreciate our firefighters and want them to have comfortable fire halls and excellent training facilities. What I take issue with is the overspending and overbuilding of the new City of Richmond fire halls that can now be seen around the city, most noticeably of late at the main fire hall at Granville and Gilbert.
I think we can all agree that the Granville/Gilbert fire hall was in need of repair or replacement. A new, modest yet well appointed fire hall is exactly what the doctor would order. Instead, what the City of Richmond has built — with our tax dollars — is an architectural masterpiece that rivals in design some of the most prestigious downtown sky scrapers.
In business, investments are made commensurate to the expected return on investment (ROI). The City of Richmond has most certainly forgotten or ignored these most basic principles of investing. The high-design sloping roof elevations and fancy architectural finishings of the new fire halls won’t be helping our fire fighters save lives anytime soon. In fact, they deliver no ROI for the safety and well being of Richmond residents. It sickens me every time I drive by these new Shangri Las because I can only imagine the money that was wasted which could have been invested in our hospital, clinics, schools, infrastructure and so forth.
I would like the city to disclose the final cost of construction for the new Brighouse fire hall. Everyone... get out your barf bags, it’s going to be ugly! Oh, and wait, how much will the city spend on the ribbon-cutting party?
Mark Wagtail
RICHMOND
