The Oct. 8 Butler Eagle editorial (“Centre City could stumble without adequate parking”) compares those who don’t believe it is fiscally wise to build the Centre City parking garage to a penurious, penny-wise and pound-foolish old man. Fair enough, but there is a different perspective.

The late actor Mickey Rooney once traced his gambling addiction to a $2 bet he lost one afternoon at the Santa Anita racetrack. He lamented spending $2 million more over the years trying to win that original $2 back. But, the former child star from Hollywood’s golden age had the money to cover his losses.

However, Butler’s parking authority admits, and I agree, that coming up with $100,000 a year in additional revenue to maintain and finance the parking facility is not possible. It’s important to remember, too, that the city of Butler is legally on the hook for the parking authority’s debt. So, a default by the parking authority could result in a bankrupt Butler. It would be Act 47 shortly after that.

If the parking authority succumbs to pressure from the various downtown lobbies, such as Butler Downtown, and rolls the dice to build the garage anyway, it should start holding its monthly meetings with a regular Gambler’s Annonymous group.

If I had a say in this, there would be a partnership with reason and common sense to try to greatly reduce the parking authority’s debt created by the Centre City project. There would be a metered surface lot right smack where the ill-conceived hotel is to stand. That hotel is another game of chance over which the parking authority should have cried poverty.