Nine-hundred, eighty-two days.

Soon — on April 30, to be exact — the City of Williamsport will spend its 1,000th day with City Hall on Fourth Street in downtown condemned.

A vote on a bid to purchase that iconic building, for which Council advertised in consultation with a real estate agency, has been tabled since last Sept. 28 — 197 days ago — with no indication council is ready to revisit it.

We appreciate that the mayor and City Council have pursued important measures to address jobs and housing here.

But as we editorialized in June of 2022 — when we saw the one-year anniversary of the condemnation of City Hall on the horizon — our city government still has not treated the matter of City Hall as diligently as it should.

And amid this glacial pace, the city administration and council have not revealed specific financial challenges or needed investments related to the building.

In our opinion, city government’s efforts to engage city residents about the future of City Hall – something they are obligated to do – have been inadequate and clearly insufficient to reach a decision.

A Request For Proposals (RFP) that city Council voted on in the fall – which has a deadline of 3 p.m., April 19, – may ultimately not provide concrete options while costing the city quite a bit of money. If we are fortunate enough that the RFP yields tangible information, the city will need to be ready for the vigorous, productive and transparent discussion that should’ve been occurring during these 982 days.

That’s why we strongly urge the mayor, in consultation with council, to establish a public advisory committee.

Such a committee can help to guide fact-finding and decision making on the future of a City Hall and be of great value to the decision-makers.

This committee should be made up of qualified individuals and stakeholders who represent a reasonable cross section of city constituents who are open-minded about all the possibilities.

We think such a step will help nurture transparency and consensus, in part by continuing to pursue answers to the public’s questions.

First and foremost, we believe the city needs to establish on paper what it needs – what space it needs for what functions and services it provides.

From there, questions such as these can be tackled:

If the closed City Hall is sold, will facilities around Williamsport deemed “temporary” in the summer of 2022 become permanent?

What will it cost in the next few years for renovations so those buildings can best function as our new city offices?

Will the city build or lease a new centralized public office building instead?

Where and what would that cost?

Is repurposing an existing building an option?

What would that cost taxpayers?

Pressure is mounting as residents and taxpayers seek answers.

We find their frustrations understandable. We share in those frustrations.

We fear the loss of time for our community to have extensive, thorough conversations will leave whichever segment of our voting body is dissatisfied with the decision suspicious that the public was corralled into that decision.

After nearly 1,000 days, an advisory committee would help our city government build transparent discussion and address the dearth of information needed for the mayor and council to determine the best option.

In other words, let the public help decide this issue by granting them advisory input through a special committee.