OCR Text |
Show Protests Lodged Against Offices, City's Take -Over of M Building : . t . : ' 't a ,, Strong feelings in favor of continued recreational use and against the forced city take-over of the Memorial Building were heard last Thursday at a city council public hearing on the facility. A group of senior citizens, led by long time active resident Nan McPolin, presented a petition calling for continued use of the building as a meeting place, recreation facility and memorial to county war veterans. Although no figure on the number of signatures was presented pre-sented McPolin emphasized that "no one had refuse to sign it." The senior citizens, and some members of the council, also blasted the county commissioners for their tactics in forcing the building upon the city. Commissioner Commis-sioner Dale Leavitt of Kamas, although mentioned only once specifically, came under repeated attack for the action. Informed that the city had no choice in the matter, McPolin indicated the group would keep the petition, seek more signatures, signa-tures, and present their protests directly to the county commis-. sioners. The council was also presented a recommended plan for using space in the facility by City Manager Wayne Matthews and City Treasurer Bruce Decker, calling for relocation of the police department to the rear of the building. "I feel the building hasn't outlived its usefulness," McPolin told the council. Pointing out that residents can't depend on school faciliti-ties" faciliti-ties" for various activities, she said Park City high school principal Jack Dozier had told her the schools were sponsoring an increasing number of activities, which would take first priority. Directly criticizing proposals to move city offices into the building, she said the city should consider the cost of losing the recreation instead of the cost of maintaining it. "Youngsters are going to be out on the streets. The crime rate will go up. We're going to have to put on more police. These are things we want to prevent." McPolin said she was "angered" "anger-ed" to read that the city had taken over the building. "It was one commissioner," she said. "Everybody is bowing to his whims. Look at the roads in the county. What do we have here that's maintained by the county? I think they're obligated to us." Councilman Jack Green explained ex-plained that the possible loss of a $147,000 grant to renovate the building was only one reason the city took it. "Dale Leavitt said they would not only keep the money, the) would close the building anc perhaps sell it," said Green. "Under those circumstances, the only reason we accepted it was to keep the building open." Green then suggested the group make their presentation to the commissioners. commis-sioners. Mayor Leon Uriarte also jumped on the anti-county band- Henderson disagreed, however, how-ever, with the idea of keeping the building under county control. Explaining that even minor maintenance has been difficult to accomplish under the county's management, Henderson said he "knew the city would do a better job." Henderson introduced Harold Bucker, director of Salt Lake YMCA who suggested that the city could make enough money from the building to cover maintenance costs if it introduced several different activities into the building and charged a small fee for use of the facilities. Buckner said the bowling alley should continue to operate, since it produces revenue and is the only bowling alley in town. Among the other activities he suggested were: a men's and women's steam room and sauna in the basement; a weightlifting room, also in the basement, and two or three prefabricated hand-ballracquetball hand-ballracquetball courts in place of the current gym. Citing the success of the racquetball program in Salt Lake, Buckner said the courts would be extremely popular with visiting skiiers and would provide enough revenue to hire additional personnel person-nel to supervise activities in the schools, instead of using the Memorial building gym, which he called "substandard." "If I had money to remodel, I wouldn't hesitate to grab that building," he said. Wayne Matthews then surprised surpris-ed the council by reporting that most of the $147,000 grant for renovating the building has already been allocated by the county for specific projects and can't be used for anything else. "The council can't change a large portion of the grant," he said. "One handball court is going in, the jacuzi, the electrical work, the roof, five or six items can't be changed." The news added to the council's discontent with the county, as several councilmen pointed out that they had been told the city could do what they wanted with the county-administered grant. Later, Matthews explained he had been informed of the city's position by Coon, King and Knowlton, the engineering firm drawing up specifications for the renovation work. County Planner Director Max Greenhalgh told the Record Tuesday, however that Matthews information was "just not right." Greenhalgh said he attended a meeting last week at the state capitol and was told by construction construct-ion engineer from the Economic Development Administration, which sponsors the grant, that the only limits are to stay within the line items on the budget submitted with the grant request. "The city can do just about anything it want to do," said Greenhalgh. "The only constraint is to live within the line items on the budget, but they can even get those changed if they want to go through the red tape with Denver." Nan McPolin wagon, warning the grup that ' they may be told something different that when the council was told. "They may be saying they're your friend, but they're telling us a different story," he said. Responding to a question from Senior Citizens President Violet Terry on whether the city had definitely taken over the building, Uriarte said a "gentleman's agreement" had been made, but that "many of these have been broken between the council and commissioners." The recommendation by Matthews Mat-thews and Decker called for relocation of the police department depart-ment to the southwest corner of the building, "utilizing the side entrance and parking police vehicles behind the building on Park Avenue." The officials also suggested that most of the remaining space continue in it present use, that the stage be converted to a handball court as planned and that "the exterior of the building facing Main Street should be upgraded to be harmonious with the surrounding Main Street area." They recommended the basketball basket-ball court be maintained until arrangements are finalized for joint use of church and school facilities, "at which time utilization utiliza-tion of the space should be reevaluated in the light of current needs." City Recreation Director Bruce Henderson supported the recommendation, recom-mendation, commenting that "there isn't a whole lot of difference between the proposal and what is being used now." Henderson re-affirmed Nan McPolin's comments that community com-munity use of school facilities would take a back seat to school activities. Referring to a conversation with Jack Dozier, Henderson said any use of school gyms would have to involve direct supervision by the recreation department staff. He said use of the middle school gym would be a problem since anyone using the facility would have access to the whole school. vi: . .'jiv.v.'.-'.';: X'", '.-x -y-'-ysy.. |