Michael Cripe
Special to the Citizen
Plans to expand Dearborn City Hall are moving forward at a steady pace.
Following a discussion that took place in July that kick started the idea to improve upon the existing location, the Dearborn board of aldermen elaborated on some potential ways to expand city hall at the Monday, Sept. 9 meeting.
For now, plans are essentially limited to almost doubling the size of city hall. The board is still deciding how they will approach doubling the establishment’s size and plans are still in their early phases. A lot could change by the time anything is implemented.
The goal of the expansion is to provide city staff with a much more suitable working environment or in other words, “more space.”
Another big talking point at this month’s meeting focused on Dearborn’s handling of water bill payments, specifically how late payments are handled. While minimizing late water bill payments is preferred, aldermen decided more planning is needed — and scheduled for next month — before any major changes are made. For now, there will be no change to how water bills are handled in Dearborn.
This move to better maintain the city’s water payments comes after the town was hit with a $50,000 rude awakening in the form of water bill debt. A number of plans were proposed to help slowly alleviate the debt, though nothing has yet been put into action.