EDITORIAL: Written by Dave Schmidt, Mercer County Outlook, www.mercercountyoutlook.com

Yeah they are finally going to clean-up the building on West Warren Street in Celina. The old Atlas Van Lines storage building has been an eyesore for a long time. I wonder if Jimmy Hoffa is buried there, maybe we will find out soon. I know the neighbors are happy and rightly so, but this should have been dealt with many years ago. Try leaving your property in that shape let’s say for “like” 20 years. They actually are going to pay the owner to tear it down and clean it up. This is just another case of the City of Celina finding a solution to a problem by buying another run down property and using tax-payers money to do it. So there you go citizens of Celina you just made another land purchase. What’s next for the property after it is cleaned up and owned by the city? Maybe we can drill for a new well, third time is the charm. How about a power plant, and paint it blue.

Terms of the deal call to haul all of the scrap and debris outside the city limits. How far outside the city limits? Hey maybe they could even build another pier on West Bank Road right next to the beautiful and scenic Mersman pier. Good way to get rid of the debris.

Here you go, let’s list the purchases of properties that the city has purchased over the years. These will be in no particular order, fits in good with the way our city officials think.

1- Heffner property, been a real asset to the city since it was purchased. We did another editorial on that building, all of the answers are located in that story. Why did we buy that building anyway? Could be a “60 Minutes” story. Last time I was in Celina I dropped by that location, no electric department there yet.

2- Hawk property, got to make the lake look beautiful. Hey I’m not against that. Plans called for everything to happen down there including a location to house the recreation department. All buildings torn down. No recreation department. They haven’t even done a good job landscaping the site, even though they have the concerts by the lake.

3- Versa Pak building, did the city ever buy that? They kept that deal under wraps after the first big blow-up. That building actually had a business in it. Spent some money on working to acquire that. What do they plan on doing with that place in the future. You could put in a PR/marketing department to promote the value of the lake as a recreational area, just don’t swim in it.

4- 2 sites we bought to drill wells on, do we still own that property? Threw that in just to fire everybody up.

5- Winkeljohn Building and Spriggs Building, let’s tear them down and build on to the old City Hall. Don’t need any new businesses downtown. How long have those two basically set empty.

6- Old train station next to the Utilities Building, let’s tear that down and put parking there for the employees.

7- Public Works Building, which was the location of Speichers. The city has spent enough money on that place fixing it up the over the years they could have built 2 new buildings to house city offices. They should have bought the old State Garage just down the street, who use to own that?

I’m sure I missed a few land purchases. So if you have an old ugly building or house that you are having trouble selling in Celina, you might just want to call the City of Celina.