Kudos to members of the Meridian City Council for voting this week to stop paying Watkins Development their $10,000 monthly consulting fee until work resumes on city projects.

    Dr. George Thomas, who represents Ward 1, said he and other council members were all in agreement that “something needed to be done.”

    That something came in the form of the council cutting the Watkins payment from $10,000 a month to $1 at their regular council meeting Tuesday.

    “Everyone was in agreement, including (David) Watkins, that this was the best thing until there is some movement in Meridian,” Thomas said.

    Meridian hired Watkins Development in October 2010 to work as a consultant for the $10,000 a month fee with a one year contract that is automatically renewed each year. The contract with the city states that $10,000 a month is a 50 percent reduction on the firm’s usual fee.

    But even at $1,000, that’s still entirely too much money for the city to pay when the firm’s main project remains at a standstill.

    Construction on the city’s new police station at the old Cowboy Maloney building — the first project Watkins has worked on in Meridian — has been halted and isn’t scheduled to resume until March 15. Watkins said the project — which entails renovating an old grocery building on 22nd Avenue into a new police station that will serve the entire department — has taken significantly longer than expected to finance.

    Watkins recently said there have been significant delays in closing on the new market tax credits, which are an important aspect of the project’s funding. He said the original closing date for the tax credits was expected to be Dec. 15, 2011. The date has been pushed back, he said, because of problems with coordination between the numerous entities involved with the tax credits and because it took longer than expected for the tax credits to be allocated for the project.

    Watkins stressed that the project is not unfunded, there is just a delay in accessing the funds. He added that the delay will not cost the city anything.

    With the delay, city officials were left with few options. The good news: they’re not having to pay for the monthly lease on building. They won’t make a payment until the building is completed.

    The bad news: city police continue to wait for a new place to operate. And up until last week, Watkins was still earning the $10,000 a month, seemingly for nothing according to some councilmen.

    “We expect to see at least something, new plans for other developments around the city or something,” Thomas said. “It’s not like the city has a huge surplus where we can just pull money. Times are tough. Our police are ready to move in.

    “We thought (cutting the fee) was the best decision for all involved. And it was a mutual agreement between everyone.

    Thomas said the $1 fee was proposed to keep Watkins “on line” with the city.

    “We still want an agreement with him, if he’s willing to work with the city to develop some things,” Thomas said. “The $1 fee was just a token amount to keep the agreement going without any significant amount of money in it.”

    We applaud city officials for diligently working on this issue. In times of economic struggle, decisions like this are tough to make.

    But it’s a refreshing step in the right direction for the city council to make. It shows that they’re looking out for taxpayers. And $9,999 a month is a lot of money, even in city government.