I've been following all of this and trying to remain a simple observer.  I agree with Joe that the community will vote for a project if the board can sell it as a good thing regardless of what "modern capital management analysis" indicates.  Your numbers and accountant approach to all of this is impressive but most of the terms are confusing.  You CPA folks throw too many terms around for us "normal" people.  I have little faith in these type of presentations.  I do understand addition and substraction though and "budget" vs. "actual."  My gut feeling in the earlier 2001 iteration of the community center referendum was that we were underestimating the project by 1.5 - 2.0 million.  As I recall, they did no actual budget analysis on the proposed community center.  The architect provided the estimate.

I attended the September 21 meeting wherein Design Atlantic made its presentation and provided its numbers.  The numbers were based on concepts only.  There are no actual designs.  When Heather Cook asked about the designs, the answer was rather vague.  The costs estimates are just guesses.  My experience with architects, although limited, leads me to believe that they don't know what things cost; and, in this case, don't even know what the things are.  I came away from that meeting feeling that Design Atlantic provided the Board with a report that came to obvious conclusions.  The study could have and should have been tasked out to an in-house adhoc committee. 

Does anyone know how much we are paying Design Atlantic?  I've been afraid to ask, but I'll bet it is a lot more that the $25,000 authorized for the marina study.

Bill Rakow