The City of Ocean Shores has purchased three pieces of property on Point Brown Avenue across from the fire department and police station, with the City Council previously authorizing the mayor to complete the deal during an executive session.

Councilwoman Jackie Farra effectively disclosed some of the details during the July 24 regular council session when she complained about seeing the financial information while reviewing the city’s bills.

“We’re spending money … yet we’re saying on the other hand that we don’t have any money,” Farra said. “You are spending money on things we can’t do anything with at this time. There is no plan, it is just spending.”

Farra had said she was questioning a payment of $100,449 that “we paid for some property we just had to have.”

“You are putting the cart before the horse,” Farra said. Farra signed off on the payment, but said she did so under protest. Several sources said the intent is to potentially build a new City Hall, where city offices can be consolidated across from the other civic facilities, such as the library and police and fire.

Mayor Crystal Dingler addressed the purchase during Monday’s City Council meeting and confirmed the deal had gone through.

“We’re looking at that as the (site for a) city hall/permitting/utility building,” Dingler said. “We felt that at the time, the property was a good value for the price. If the city doesn’t hop on things like that when we have the opportunity, the opportunity would be lost.”

The intent would be to consolidate city departments in one place, and then sell the existing public building on the corner of Shoal and Minard.

“There are economies of scale in having everybody together,” Dingler said of the future plans. That would allow people to come to one place to pay their water bill, get a permit, or even pay a fine for a traffic infraction.

“Right now, we spend a lot of time running back and forth between the buildings, and it’s a waste of time and effort,” Dingler said.

The southern-most lot might be a good place for parking, she noted, while the other two lots could be used for the building itself should the decision be made to proceed.

Dingler said the city paid about $700,000 for the existing permit center/city utility building before the market collapsed in 2007-08. She believes the building is now valued at about $500,000.

The goal would be to use proceeds from the sale to pay for construction of the new city hall.

“I think it would be good having purchased that property to move in that direction,” the mayor said. She plans to ask for funding to start planning and design in the upcoming 2018 city budget.