Newtown's Community Center Commission is scheduled to commence a series of community forums late this week. The sessions on February 4, 6, 9, and 13 will solicit public comments on the various components of an emerging conceptual plan that includes a community center, an aquatic center featuring an indoor pool, and an ice rink. Advocates for a fully featured center, including all of these components and costing as much as $22 million, had hoped the town would match the $10 million in construction funds donated by GE in the wake of the 12/14 tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The Legislative Council reined in those aspirations in December, however, by adopting a capital improvement plan that limited the town's involvement in the capital project to $7.5 million over the next two fiscal years.

There is still a will to "go big" with a community center by many of its advocates. A financial analysis by a subcommittee of the Community Center Commission is sure to figure prominently in the public forums over the next week because it shows that the two most extravagant proposed components of the plan - the pool facility and the ice rink - will generate revenues annually that will effectively offset most or all of the expenses of running the facilities. That conclusion is predicated on projections that the aquatic center will generate roughly $800,000 to $1 million, and the ice rink $1.2 million annually over their first three years. The implication is that operationally, at least, these seemingly expensive facilities will not cost property taxpayers much of anything. The costs will be borne, of course, by the subset of taxpayers who choose to be fee payers. Some of them are expected to be from other towns.

The pay-to-play method of financing programs deemed nonessential is familiar to parents of school children. Over the years, the practice has migrated from the schools to generate much-needed revenue for town recreational programs and facilities. Fees are also assessed for groups using facilities at the Booth Library and Edmond Town Hall. It has become a kind of ad hoc taxation for the willing and able, which means those with the interest and the money. And facilities like aquatic centers and indoor ice rinks can draw avid interest and a lot of money.

For example, projections for the ice rink estimate that 395 Newtown households will pay $360 a year for memberships, with an equal number of individuals paying half that. Just a couple of dozen local senior citizens are expected to pay a discounted rate of $162 annually. Hundreds of out-of-town skaters are also expected to buy in at higher rates. But by the subcommittee's own assumptions, just five percent of Newtown's families will be willing to pay for an ice rink membership, which does not quite make it a full-time "community" facility.

The Community Center Commission has gone the extra mile to solicit public opinions about what the center should be. Its most recent survey revealed broad support for a facility that "serves the needs of the entire community." We hope the forums over the next week help the commission assess whether the town will meet that directive by spending so many millions on facilities that reserve periods of exclusive use for a relative few paying members. We encourage those attending the forums to let the commission know whether these are uses that will draw the community together in accordance with the original intent of GE's generous gift to the town.

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