Building Commission Rejects Selectmen’s Cut To Rec Center Budget

By John Voket

Spending $9 million to develop an inferior town recreation center is not an appropriate or recommended use of taxpayer dollars. That is the message being dispatched to the Board of Selectmen by its advisory Public Building and Site Commission.

That panel voted 5-1 September 22 to recommend the town either immediately proceed with the current proposal for a facility projected to cost $12 million, or postpone the project until the $12 million plan can be budgeted.

The building commission seemed to favor scrapping the project altogether if the minimum facility parameters as conceived cannot be fulfilled.

Under questioning by building Commissioner Tony D’Angelo, Parks & Recreation Commission Chairman Ed Marks said even the $12 million proposal would only deliver a facility he graded as “B minus.” Mr Marks added that a true community center, that could earn an “A” grade in his estimation, would incorporate a senior center, a multipurpose room, or several additional classrooms.

In a recent letter to the Board of Selectmen from the Newtown Commission on Aging, the consensus of seniors expressing an opinion rejected sharing a facility with recreation offices, a teen center, gym and pool complex. The seniors said their final decision was to remain where they are until such a time that a standalone senior center could be considered.

Taking the removal of senior facilities in the initial shared center proposal under consideration, Mr Marks told the building commission that his department could “make it work,” if the $12 million option for the combined rec center and pool facility was accepted into the town’s Capital Improvement Plan (CIP).

The Board of Finance will be evaluating the five-year CIP for municipal project proposals in a special meeting October 1.

Building commission Chair Robert Mitchell agreed with Mr Marks wholeheartedly, saying that if his commission recommended a $9 million alternative, “I would be afraid residents would walk in and say, ‘We built this for $9 million?’ We are losing [sight of] the whole reason for building this.”

Conversely, Mr Mitchell said the proposed facility currently on the table for $12 million would be “a true community asset.”

Mr D’Angelo pressed further, suggesting the town hold a nonbinding referendum to gauge resident’s feelings on whether they would support the $12 million plan and its various components, or would even support spending more to get an “A-grade” recreation center.

Mr Marks told the building commission that by eliminating the features to make the facility fit the $9 million budget the selectmen proposed would reduce the scope of services available to particular groups who might otherwise be users of the center.

He said cutting the budget from $12 million to $9 million would mean eliminating the teen center component of the project, as well as a multipurpose room, a unisex bathroom, and one of the two swimming pools that are in the current plan.

“In my opinion, that would not be a community center,” Mr Marks said, adding that the goal of developing a community center that would serve all potential users in town could be achieved through a somewhat more expensive process of adding on components in stages over time.

Mr Marks also spoke to the notion that a $12 million center would include more extravagant features, versus the basic functional aspects to allow the facility to welcome and serve virtually all populations in Newtown.

“If this entire thing flew [as proposed], I see it as bringing the basics. Barely a ‘B,’ a ‘B minus’ maybe,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of classrooms, not a lot of luxuries.”

The commission and Mr Marks agreed that if the project was proposed all over again, it might have been better to start with a spending cap and commissioning a design from that point. But with the project’s planning so far down the road now, the commission viewed the proposal as the best possible compromise.

Mr Mitchell said that going back some time, when he volunteered for the Newtown Youth Services, he said the need for a dedicated and appropriately outfitted teen center “came up constantly.” Commissioner Tom Catalina concurred.

“The teen center [aspect] is important,” Mr Catalina said, adding that teens in town need an isolated space “to call their own, with an identity of its own.”

Commissioner Joe Whelan also weighed in, saying, “The $9 million plan is an embarrassment.”

“We need a viable community center as programmed at the originally budgeted cost of $12 million,” Mr Mitchell said, calling for a vote to recommend consideration of the $12 million for the CIP.

The votes came back 5-1 with Commissioner Peter Samoskevich dissenting.

Speaking to The Newtown Bee following the meeting, Mr Mitchell said he expected to communicate his board’s recommendation and reasoning in a letter to the selectmen and the Board of Finance in the coming days.

Parks & Recreation Director Amy Mangold said following the meeting that she also agrees with the Public Building and Site Commission.

“Losing the teen center, a pool, and still being modest at best, the facility cannot and should not be built,” Ms Mangold said. “I am happy that they passed the resolution for a $12 million facility, and hope that this will help us in moving forward with the CIP process.”