Mission Viejo City Hall Stayed Within Budget

Re “Reining in Spending in Mission Viejo,” April 28:

I was alarmed to see a letter from Rod Freed saying that he had read in the Los Angeles Times that overruns had pushed the cost of the new Mission Viejo City Hall from $12 million to $22 million. There were no cost overruns on this project, and neither of these dollar figures are correct. I am writing to set the record straight.

Two years ago, in an advisory vote, 74% of Mission Viejo’s voters endorsed a proposal to build a city hall “on land already owned by the city across the courtyard from the Mission Viejo Library at a total construction and financing cost of approximately $57.7 million over the next fifty years.”

This cost, calculated by the Keyser Marston Associates real estate consulting firm, compared favorably with a similar 50-year cost of $81 million to buy and renovate an older office building, or $107.5 million to continue leasing office space in an existing building.

Through a series of actions, the Mission Viejo City Council established a budget of $14.4 million for design and construction of the city hall and gave strict instructions that there were to be no cost overruns. Ground was officially broken on March 21, 2000, and the doors to this modest two-story structure were opened one year later, on March 25, 2002, on schedule and within budget.

Sherri M. Butterfield

Mayor pro tempore

Mission Viejo