Now that the Jamestown City Council has rejected a pair of Non-Profit Assistance Grants, the question becomes what should be done with the $400,000 that hasn’t been spent?

The answer is simple to us — return that money to the City Council and use it to lessen the $6.9 million bond act being proposed by Mayor Eddie Sundquist. Of course it isn’t that simple. We’re sure there will have to be resolutions back and forth between the Jamestown Local Development Corporation and the City Council to formally move the money back to the council’s purview so that it can be reallocated for another use.

That means the easy thing to do would be to take that $400,000 and give it to a project that a few council members seemed to back receiving more money. We refer, of course, to the proposed new YMCA building on Harrison Street. William Reynolds, R-Ward 5, and Jeff Russell, R-At Large, both supported additional funding for the YMCA project, while we note Regina Brackman, D-Ward 3, took issue with the Harrison Street site over concerns it will be harder for some youth to use than the current Fourth Street location.

In our view, the council shouldn’t do the easy thing. That isn’t a slight toward the YMCA. A new building for the Jamestown YMCA is needed — whether it’s on Harrison Street or in partnership with other agencies, though that isn’t the preference of the local YMCA board. The question here isn’t the worthiness of the YMCA project, but the $12 million cost to pay back a $6.9 million bond. The $400,000 the council rejected last week would go a lot further on a $6.9 million project than on a $30 million project. Every dollar the city removes from the proposed bond act saves nearly $2 for taxpayers between now and 2048.

That makes the best use of the $400,000 paying down the bond act, in our opinion.