A new city hall for St. Marys? Where? When?

Letters City Hall move would abandon downtown Dear Editor, I read with fear that our city officials are thinking about moving City Hall to the old railroad building in front of LandMar's (paper mill) project.Just 10 days ago, the mayor, many citizens and a host of officials from the Department of Community Affairs assembled at Marianne's to celebrate St. Marys' recent accreditation as a Main Street/Better Hometown city. The thrust of the National Main Street program is revitalization of commercial districts. The city is trying to promote revitalization of the downtown area, but 10 days later we read that St. Marys is thinking about moving City Hall. Abandoning the district in whole or in part shows that the city may not believe what it is promoting.We lost the post office. We don't need our local government to abandon downtown.One final thought: What does LandMar get out of the deal? Tom Cyphers St. Marys Letters Downtown not the center of St. Marys Dear Editor, Oh, for God's sake, Tom Cyphers ("City Hall move would abandon downtown area," Feb. 15), the Rillos, et al: Get over it."Downtown" is neither the economic nor geographic center of St. Marys. It hasn't been for decades and never will be again. Holding City Hall hostage in the "historic district" makes no more sense than keeping the old, and equally obsolete, post office downtown. I'm sure that the other 99 percent of us non-downtowners would rather see the city build a new city government complex adequate to the needs of the next 100 years than to micturate away over a million dollars to renovate and move into the old St. Marys Railroad building. Moreover, we would like to see it far more centrally located.As I do believe I have opined before on these very pages, there exists at the moment an ideal location for such a city government all-inclusive complex. I am speaking of the property located on the east side of Spur 40, fronting Spur 40, and immediately north of and adjacent to the St. Marys Post Office.Local land prices will not get any cheaper. It seems to me that the time to act decisively - at least on the land acquisition - is now. Of course, as beholding as most of our councilmen are to the downtowner bloc vote, the chances of such a rational action are admittedly slim. Jay Moreno St. Marys Well, there you have it - two opposing views from recent editions of the Tribune and Georgian. What do you think? How soon do we need a new city hall? What's the best location? What all should be relocated to a new city government complex?