Of all the pressing issues Dearborn residents are concerned about, the renovation of a new city hall certainly isn’t one.

The drastic decline in housing values since the 2008 recession considerably affected the city’s greatest source of income.  As property values went down, major cuts were made to public safety, and the number of city employees and services were also reduced.

We need to be innovative right now and try hard to figure out how to bolster the City’s revenues in order to stabilize neighborhoods and help Dearborn attract and retain residents and new businesses.

However, Mayor Jack O’Reilly Jr. is insisting that the more than $8 million given to the city by Severstal be used for a new city hall, instead of investing the money in Dearborn’s communities.

The money was given to the city by the steel company in the South End, as part of an agreement for naming rights of a building. But it will be used for the Artspace project and the new city hall. Artspace is a national non-profit group that develops art studios.

For months, residents and community leaders have raised legitimate concerns to the mayor about selling the existing City Hall to Artspace and moving the operation center of the city government to an entirely new building.

The vision of a politician should not carry more weight than the needs of the residents he represents and serves.

Dearborn residents, particularly those who live in historically underserved areas such as the South End, are dealing with the impact of budget cuts, including reduced security and increased blight.

Neighborhoods in the South End are struggling to maintain the prosperity they knew for years.

A strong sense of community is what lifted South End residents against the economic storm, which left them feeling less safe and more vulnerable to forces outside of their control. They, along with other residents throughout Dearborn, are the ones left to deal daily with crime, while the mayor stands strongly on his conviction of building a new city hall that does nothing to improve the people’s lives.

Without strong families, neighborhoods wither. And without strong neighborhoods, our city becomes weaker. We must be focused on leveraging our resources to stem that tide.

How can the millions that the mayor wishes to direct towards this building be leveraged to establish partnerships that could make our communities safer, our people healthier, our city stronger and assist the city’s underserved families?

These are the very questions that Mayor O’Reilly should be asking. The way we spend that money can have direct benefits that would improve lives for generations.

We especially cannot forget the residents in the South End, many of them children who everyday are exposed to toxic fumes from Severstal and other pollutants in the area. The people there are watching their backyard plants and trees die. But what’s more important is that residents’ health is in jeopardy. Many have complained about developing respiratory problems .

A South End resident described living conditions in the area best when she told one of our reporters last week at a hearing on proposed changes to Severstal’s factory, “Why don’t they buy out the people who want to live? I don’t want to be a statistic. I want to have a garden. I want to go out there and lay on the grass without shaking the bushes there to get the white powder to fall…We are no different than southwest Detroit who got bought out by the oil refinery. I itch. My eyes water.”

The millions Severstal gave the City should be used to increase the quality of life for residents such as this one and directed towards working harder to control pollutants in the South End and protect their  health.

If money is to be spent, let it be spent focusing on residents, not on a new city hall. Given the way Severstal’s money will not benefit the community, the steel company might want to consider donating the money directly to the residents of the South End, who are living with the pollution caused by its plant.