Stop twitching and consider
YMCA deal
Knees were jerking at Ketchum City
Hall last week when the YMCA proposed to take over the city’s Recreation
Department.
City Council members should try to
stop the twitching for an hour or two and give the proposal the serious
consideration it deserves.
The proposal would solve a couple
of growing problems for the city’s recreation programs, and the council
wisely did not dismiss the idea out of hand.
The city’s recreation programs
have become so popular that the city is not sure how to handle the
growing numbers of kids who want to participate. Kids from all over the
valley use Ketchum’s parks and programs for a small fee. The hitch is
that Ketchum taxpayers are the only ones who support the programs.
Neither Sun Valley nor Blaine
County taxpayers pay for any active parks programs, yet both are home to
families who use them. That puts an unfair burden on Ketchum taxpayers.
Under the YMCA’s proposal, the
city wouldn’t need to contribute $3 million to build the $16 million
complex. Instead, it would contract with the Y to provide its current
park programs at the current cost of $450,000 a year. Then, the YMCA
could use part of the money it plans to spend on programs for a larger
construction loan instead.
Voila! The city wouldn’t have to
figure out where to find the money to pay off a $3 million bond. The
YMCA would be in a position to solicit similar contracts from Sun Valley
and Blaine County, which would make funding more fair.
One objection to the proposal is
that it would cheat Ketchum voters who would have no say in the matter
of whether the complex is built or not.
But consider.
Ketchum has committed land for the
complex, which includes a gym, outdoor pools and a hockey rink on the
site of the city park and ride lot. It has urged interested groups to
pursue a complicated public-private funding scheme to build a recreation
complex.
Did Ketchum’s elected officials do
these things just to lure citizens to waste their time putting together
the YMCA proposal? We don’t think so.
Change can chill the most sensible
people, and it’s no wonder the YMCA’s proposal wasn’t warmly embraced at
first. The city is proud of its parks programs, which are in high demand
with families throughout the valley. City staffers have worked hard to
create first rate programs and they are an important part of the city’s
"family" of employees.
It’s hard to imagine family
members changing "families."
But unless the city has changed
its mind and wants to derail the recreation complex, it should not pass
up what looks like a good deal all around.