City Officials Likely To Be Stymied On Federal Building

Laconia City Manager Eileen Cabanel and the mayor and City Council are apparently going to be thwarted in their efforts to prevent the Laconia Federal Building from being used to assist homeless people.

Genesis Behavorial Health has applied for ownership of the surplus facility, and given that the mental health agency provides mental health services to the homeless, its application to take ownership of the building is likely to be approved by the General Services Administration.

Federal law requires that surplus buildings that are deemed suitable for providing services to the homeless must first be offered to agencies serving the homeless population before making them available for other local or state governmental use, or for public auction.

Genesis has indicated that if it is awarded the property it will sell two buildings and parcels of land it owns in the city and combine operations in the Federal Building. That should please city officials since it would allow the existing properties to be placed on the tax rolls. Currently they are exempted from property tax because Genesis is a non-profit organization.

Councilman Knytych Pulls A Sarah Palin

In the discussion over the City of Laconia's desire to prevent the "surplus" Laconia Federal Building from being used as a homeless shelter, Ward 1 Councilman Greg Knytych observed with his usual bluster that the homeless shelter in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona was about half the size of the federal building in Laconia.

"This is an overkill for the needs," Knytych is reported as having said.

Now, I must beg to differ with Mr. Knytych, at least as regards the veracity of his description of the size of the homeless shelter in Phoenix.

First, there is no single homeless shelter in Phoenix, as indicated by the Google Map results illustrated below. Second, a number of the homeless shelters in Phoenix are considerably larger than Laconia's Federal Building.

I'm surprised that Mr. Knytych didn't warn Laconia of the threat of "death panels" that would arise from the creation of any, new homeless shelter in Laconia.