By Per Peterson
An outside firm recently got an inside look at the former liquor store building as part of a feasibility study, and now it’s the Tracy City Council’s turn.
Following a suggestion by council member Seth Schmidt, the council on Monday decided to take themselves on a tour of the building. The tour — at 10 a.m. on Saturday — will actually qualify as an open meeting, so members of the public are invited. No decisions pertaining to the future of the building will be made; the tour is designed to give council members a feel of the building to help them decide if it’s a viable option for a new senior/community center.
“I think we all need to get a good, hard look at it,” council member Ron Koopman said.
Tracy City Administrator Erik Hansen said the tour would equate to a special city council meeting.
“It’s a tour, but essentially, we have to notice it,” he said. “Anybody can come, because it’s an open meeting.”
Council member Jeri Schons stressed the tour will not be a forum for the public to give their thoughts and opinions about the subject.
“We’ll go down, do a tour — done,” she said. “I don’t want expectations where people are upset because they go down there and now we’re not even listening to them again,” Schons said. “That’s not what this is for — it’s a tour.”
In related news from Monday’s meeting, the council authorized Hansen to issue an RFP (Request for Proposals) to include a full feasibility of the final two building options; community engagement on space and activity planning; and a full design of the one final building option.
The liquor store building has been targeted as the main option of standing structures to be home of a new senior/community center. The other option that will be considered for a new center is building new — either at or near the site of the liquor store building or somewhere else, possibly at the spot left vacant after the razing of the Masonic building at the intersection of 3rd and Morgan streets.
Senior resident Ken Witt once again addressed the council on the senior center issue, and said a new building would carry much more value into the future than a remodel of the liquor store would.
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.