Rec Center Dropped From Capital Plan

By Kendra Bobowick

Selectmen could have, would have, but ultimately did not support funding for a recreation center. Hopes for the recreation/community center raised earlier this month were promptly dropped Tuesday when the Board of Selectmen deleted the project from the town’s proposed capital improvement requests.

“It’s removed, but that doesn’t mean it can’t go back in,” First Selectman Joseph Borst said, explaining that the facility can be included again in the annually updated Capital Improvement Plan (CIP),  but just not this year.

While removing the recreation facility from the CIP helped serve to lower proposed debt service costs below a self-imposed municipal cap of ten percent, the cut was likely in reaction to a request from the Legislative Council made January 16.

On that evening, the council learned that seniors citizens would not support a shared facility.

The first selectman chose to highlight the cut as an effective tool for lowering the bottom line.

“We have got to control the debt service,” Mr Borst said. Translating the effort into dollars, he confirmed that in an effort to reign in the town’s spending, Board of Finance members had asked the selectmen to find at least $4 million to drop from the CIP.

On Tuesday, selectmen moved the municipal side CIP revisions to the finance board, which is scheduled to deliberate that and the school district’s own capital improvement plan Thursday, after The Newtown Bee went to press.

The recreation center cut sends Parks and Rec staff and board members back to square one.

In late December, Parks and Recreation Commission Chairman Ed Marks argued to keep the center at the top of his list for capital improvements. “I’d hate to risk a community center…” he had said, hoping that his recommendation would make it through rounds of cuts.

Boosting his hopes days later was a Board of Selectman’s motion in early January to increase the appropriation for the first of several phases of recreation center funding. Beyond the $600,000 slated for the facility’s design and engineering that Mr Marks had wanted to see completed this year, selectmen intended to add $400,000 to the sum to pay for demolition of Litchfield House sooner than planned.

The center is still slated to stand within Litchfield House’s foundation’s footprint. Funds would have been shifted from the first of two proposed installments of $3.1 million for future phases of constructing for the recreation center in 2008-2009, and 2009-2010.

The seniors’ preference not to share a facility with the Parks and Recreation Department coincidentally helped expedite the first selectmen’s decision to drop all recreation center funding, Mr Borst confirmed.

“I am still unsure of the seniors. They are saying they want a separate building.” He promised to attend a planned meeting next week to reveal designs of what a combined facility could be, insisting that he does not believe a separate building is the wisest financial move. “We’re not going to talk about a separate building,” he said.

Recreation Director Barbara Kasbarian learned that hopes for the center were literally erased form the CIP and said, “I really thought this time it was going to happen.” Expressing optimism that the recreation center would eventually find financing she said, “Once things are straightened out, if not next year, then the following year.”

What will she do now?

“Well, we will just have to continue as we are,” Ms Kasbarian said. Currently the recreation programming relies 100 percent on the schools for space, which are cramped. She said, “[School] enrollment is bulging and they need the space.” She also explained that whenever school was cancelled, the recreation schedule for the day was also cancelled. She believes the center would be an asset.

“The center would be for all of the population, not just zeroing in on kids,” Ms Kasbarian said. She also notes that the center would have included a pool as funding from the CIP became available in coming years. With this week’s developments in mind, however, she said, “If it is cut and pushed back, who knows.”