Community Center option

Thank you for your attentive coverage of the impending train wreck in relocating the Next senior center from Midvale School to 400 E. Lincoln. Now that we're looking at a rebuild, the pause for review that you recommend in your May Endnote is especially appealing.

As a way out, I suggest that the entire project be reimagined, to place the Birmingham Public Schools (BPS) early childhood center at Lincoln and allow Next to expand into the space vacated by the existing center at Midvale. This would remove Next from the equation entirely while ensuring a purpose-built, tailored design for BPS's needs at Lincoln, likely costing less than now foreseen. The YMCA involvement is curious, but if a pool there must be, BPS could manage it as it does others at various schools. No shovel has yet broken ground at Lincoln, so if there was ever a chance for a re-look, this is it.

My social media post as above garnered two objections, that Birmingham taxpayers should not bear the costs for relocating a facility that also serves non-residents and that the Lincoln project is deflecting the commission's attention from other budgetary imperatives.

As a Birmingham resident-cum-taxpayer, I well recognize the relevance of these concerns, but I propose first cutting the Gordian knot around the Lincoln site. The anticipated mega-bond issue recalls the two rejected in 2014 (library expansion) and 2019 (North Old Woodward project), as today's planners should bear in mind.

Paul Seibold

Birmingham