In August 2010, citizens celebrated the dedication of a new 160-foot-tall clock tower in the little town of Berne in Adams County.

The tower was far from finished at the time, but the Berne Community Development Corp. wanted to dedicate the tower during the annual Swiss Days celebration, and no one seemed to mind.

Now, nearly a year and a half later, the tower stands close to complete but still not finished. And some people, though only a few, are beginning to complain.

They point out that the tower is still surrounded by a field of mud. They say the clock is already missing some of its hands, and they complain that tax dollars are going to be needed to complete and then maintain the tower.

In short, some people are calling it a debacle.

There’s nothing a newspaper columnist loves more than a debacle, so I thought I’d ask what was going on in Berne. I talked to Dave Baumgartner, president of the Berne Community Development Corp., the group that raised the money to build the tower.

Yes, he said, there have been naysayers about the tower from the beginning, “and that’s OK,” he said.

People have just found a few more things to complain about, such as the mud and the minute hands.

There have been problems with the minute hands on the clock, Baumgartner said. This is the second time problems have arisen. The hands are 15 feet long, and high winds make them vibrate, and one broke.

The Cincinnati company that designed the hands acknowledged they were flawed, so it is coming up with a new design, at its expense. The new hands should arrive in the next three weeks, Baumgartner said.

Yes, the tower is still surrounded by mud. The Indiana Department of Transportation rebuilt the intersection and roads around the tower, delaying the installation of a sprinkler system and landscaping, Baumgartner said. By this spring, sod will be installed and 3,000 flowering plants will be planted, creating what are called quilt gardens.

There are also plans to add a splash pad, a sort of fountain that people can run through and get soaked on hot days. This summer, events will be offered every month beneath the tower.

The plans sound nice to me, pretty impressive for a small community.

But what’s this money issue some people are talking about?

All bills related to work done so far have been paid, Baumgartner said. Nothing is done until money is in hand, raised from people with apparently deep pockets who like the tower idea and are willing to donate.

Some people have argued the city should be spending money improving the sewer system or something like that, not on a clock tower, but Baumgartner isn’t sure where that came from. You don’t build sewer systems with private donations, he said.

“They don’t want tax dollars spent on this, and we haven’t spent any tax dollars on it,” Baumgartner said.

The non-profit that built the $3 million tower has raised $4 million, Baumgartner said, and there are pledges for hundreds of thousands of dollars more to endow the tower in the future.

As to whether the city will eventually take possession, Baumgartner said: “Frankly, we don’t want the city to have it. We’ve never offered it to the city. It’s owned by a not-for-profit, and we have plenty of money. We’re not going to even consider turning it over to the city until we have a sizable endowment.”

So, is the tower finished now, I asked Baumgartner? He hesitated. Well, he said, it might never be finished. They want to install some restrooms in the tower. They might want to install an additional splash pad. There is talk of installing stairs that will let people go to the top and look out.

After that, who knows?

The silly part is, what is there to complain about, really? Fundraising to build the tower started 10 years ago. Construction started two years ago. Now the tower is, for all practical purposes, finished – all paid for with private donations and no tax dollars. Complaining makes no sense.

Perhaps people who don’t like it should just get a watch and not look at the tower.