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Central Point scraps annex City Hall has plenty of room for now, council decides CENTRAL POINT -- The City Council Tuesday scrapped plans to expand City Hall with a new annex. Jim Bennett, city administrator, showed floor plans of City Hall showing plenty of room for city departments for the next five to 10 years. "This is just to show you it can be done in our building," Bennett said. "We could meet the needs here and expand the council chambers as well." Council members agreed that city staff should design a new layout for city departments and a larger council chamber in the existing city building. That wasn't the direction the city was headed a few weeks ago. Architectural plans were being drawn for a new, $5.5 million, 22,000-square-foot annex, with the Rogue Valley Council of Governments as a key tenant. RVCOG leases office space on the second floor in Central Point City Hall for its 33 employees. In the new annex its lease was key to financing a revenue bond to pay for the new building. But recently RVCOG staff found a downtown building for $350,000 -- less than leasing space in the new annex. RVCOG plans to remodel the 6,500-square-foot building at 155 N. First St. and move in at the start of next year. RVCOG's move will free up 4,200 square feet on the second floor of City Hall. Council members and Bennett discussed expanding the police department into the entire first floor, along with a much larger council chamber. The finance department and city administration would move upstairs. Mayor Bill Walton also suggested that rental property the city owns on Second and Oak streets could be converted to parking. Council members and staff agreed more parking spaces were sorely needed. In other action, the council decided not to make major changes in the water rates charged in The Meadows, an adult manufactured home park. A Meadows resident had asked the council to reconsider how the city charges for water. The city charges apartment complexes, duplexes, mobile home parks and hotels and motels $13.03 per month for the first 667 cubic feet of water per unit, and then $1.12 per cubic foot above the minimum. The same rate applies to homes. Councilman Bill Stults said residents of The Meadows' 225 manufactured homes are paying for water they don't use. They never consume the minimum 667 cubic feet of water per unit. The Meadows charges a monthly fee of $74.50 per unit for water, garbage and other services. "What I would like to see is a bill based on consumption," Stults said. Council members said they didn't see the matter as urgent, mostly because The Meadows received certain benefits, such as smaller setbacks and other amenities specific to planned unit developments. Council members also said they felt it would be discriminatory to give the Meadows a different rate then the rest of the city. Lee Brennan, public works director, said his department will review water rates this winter and spring as part of developing the water system's master plan. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA