The proximity of city and county offices, we are assured, produces better cooperation, efficiency and service. Yet the two governments – City-County Building roommates for nearly 40 years – have just given the community a textbook failure-to-communicate case of how not to do something.

Anybody shocked by Thursday's unanimous decision by Allen County Council to cap spending for city-county co-location at $3 million – and Mayor Tom Henry's subsequent pronouncement that the “dream” had died – simply hadn't been paying attention. I reported five months ago that many council members were alarmed by the potential costs, but they didn't consider funding for the county's share of the project until this week – long after countless hours and thousands of dollars had been spent.

Most people decide what they are able and willing to spend at the beginning of a project, so they can distinguish dreams from reality.

In hindsight, this exercise may have been doomed from the start. After all, when the city first talked about buying the Renaissance Square building at 200 E. Berry St. more than six years ago, it came amid a squabble over its lease at the county-owned City County Building. That landlord-tenant relationship has been a strained one, on and off, ever since – which is no doubt one reason Henry and other city officials never endorsed the county's proposal that the two governments co-own both buildings. Henry made it clear again this week the city wants to own its own building instead of paying the county $1.2 million per year in rent.

Is there an intrinsic value in having similar city and county offices grouped together? Probably, but no one ever attempted to document that value – which gave County Council members little choice but to base their decision on irrefutable numbers: If the county has already pledged $3 million to provide the Sheriff's Department with a new 22,000-square-foot headquarters, why should it spend millions more to move some of its offices out of the City-County Building and into Renaissance Square two blocks away?

No one doubts the city needs a new location for its Police Department, now in an antiquated office building on Creighton Avenue. But imagine how different this week's outcome might have been had the two sides taken a more forward-looking and collaborative approach.

They could have started by jointly determining their long-term space needs, estimating the costs and establishing a budget by winning specific up-front commitments from both city and county councils. They could have negotiated an agreement on ownership or leasing and developed a plan to locate offices in the most-efficient and cost-effective way. Then – and only then – they could have agreed to buy an existing building or construct one.

Or the two governments could have concluded that their different needs required vastly different approaches and agreed to operate separately – as they did for most of this city's history.

Instead, they chased the politically appealing dream of co-location without the passion, preparation and planning to assure success.

Thursday's death-knell will be viewed by some as just another example of local government dysfunction. But that does not necessarily make the outcome a bad one.

If city and county officials are willing, they can still work together to keep similar departments together in either the City-County or Renaissance buildings. Henry has already signaled a willingness to keep land-use and planning staffs together, and emergency communications will remain in the City-County basement.

And the apparent demise of grandiose co-location plans presents an opportunity for other efficiencies, such as each government's ability to consolidate offices now scattered in various locations, some of which may bring a considerable price on the open market.

Since the City-County Building was dedicated in 1971, cell phones, the Internet, fax machines and other communication techniques have joined old standbys like the telephone, meetings, mail and, yes, even conversation. Co-location is desirable, but its absence does not justify any future lack of cooperation among officials paid – often handsomely – to work together. City and county police shouldn't have to use the same bathroom, to borrow an argument from one co-location supporter, in order to share information.

In fact, the way things have gone recently, the cliché about familiarity breeding contempt seems obvious.

Maybe the one about absence making the heart grow fonder will prove true, as well.