This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
I've said a lot of things over the past 9 months regarding Ballot Issue 3B, the pool & ice rink. A lot of them have been witheringly, overwhelmingly negative. I've called it Ice Town. I've described it as the kind of idiotic, boondoggle, vanity project emblematic of dysfunctional small town politics. Back when it seemed possible that the library information district would be on this year's ballot, I told the Observer's publisher Scott Converse that I'd rather have neither a better library or Ice Town than to have both of them.
I've changed my mind. I plan to vote for Ice Town, and I hope that I can convince you to do so as well.
To start, let's apportion blame where blame is due. The previous city council did a poor job of scoping the project. Why would you consider a facility which includes two kinds of popular physical activity (swimming and ice skating) which are expensive and not additionally consider a general use space, cardio space and a weight room? The current city council, however, share the blame. After recognizing this deficiency and adding those popular features to the facility (via a last-minute $1.7 million budget expansion), why on earth would you put this thing on the ballot as a "pool & ice rink" rather than "a new rec center?!"
So what's converted me from skeptic to Ice Clown seeking to give Mayor Brian Bagley his Ice Crown? The moment of change for me was listing to Mayor Bagley at this year's mayoral debate. And while I'll crib from Mayor Bagley's talking points partially in support of the facility, that's not really all of it.
We need a new pool.
Centennial Pool is falling apart. This was obvious during the original feasibility study which concluded 2 years ago, and conditions there have worsened. Swimming is a popular form of exercise (and yes it skews rich but stay with me) and it behooves us to support residents interested in physical activity. And with Longmont's growing population, the demand for pool space is only going to increase. The new facility would include an exercise pool and a leisure pool, and under the assumption that Centennial will be shuttered shortly after the new facility is constructed I'd expect the final plan to include diving space as well. The increase in pool capacity from 6 lanes to 25 lanes will provided much needed relief for those who complain of crowded lanes preventing any actual exercise from taking place.
I've heard from people in comments on the Longmont Observer Facebook page that complaints of crowding don't make sense to them since they have been to the pool at times when it wasn't crowded, or even that it's not crowded a lot of the time. Well, yeah -- because people who swim for exercise are going to do so just before or just after work hours, so it doesn't surprise me that there are times when the pool is empty. There are times when Ken Pratt doesn't have traffic, but those are also the times when no one wants to go anywhere. That doesn't stop people from justifiably complaining about traffic, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't build the pool to meet our peak usage needs.
We need a new rec center.
Right now, there's a real concentration of Longmont city services on the south side of town. The civic center, library, museum, justice center, and rec center are all south of Longs Peak Avenue, and that just doesn't sit right with me. Two of the sites still in consideration are further north and will make this healthful, enjoyable city service easily accessible for more residents. That's a win for the people who live here.
Like Centennial Pool, the existing rec center is also oversubscribed during peak use periods. The pool at the rec center gets a lot of the same complaints about crowding, and with the growth in population having more fitness center space is going to make a lot of sense.
This is something we can afford.
We're fortunate the City of Longmont has been well managed for a while now, meaning that we're on good financial footing. The city has no bad debt and all of the bonds issued are supported by taxes which are at no risk of falling short.
Is the ice rink necessary? Of course not. Is it something it'd be nice to have? Heck yeah. I live near Roosevelt Park and see how well loved the Ice Pavilion is during the winter, but it's also obvious to me that there's too many people using it all at the same time.
Much has been said of the $600,000 shortfall in the anticipated budget of the facility. That assumed no use fees for the school district, which has recently committed $300,000 per year. The rest of the money? To be honest, I'm not worried about it. Last year, the Ice Pavilion in Roosevelt Park had 24,000 visitors and $168,000 in revenue. That's pretty good for a rink not much larger than a 2 car garage. I suspect a larger rink would see a lot more use. And the rest of the shortfall, I think it's okay for the city to spend from the general fund.
But what about equity?
The effort to get this facility built has been besieged -- rightly so -- by criticisms about equity. Swimming and hockey are sports favored by wealthy people and hockey is a particularly expensive sport to play. Just getting into the equipment can set a family back several hundred dollars, plus the travel commitment that comes with a lot of youth leagues. Proponents of the measure have done a bad job of addressing these criticisms, and it's to their detriment because in the end I think it'll be the point which sinks the ballot issue.
There's another kind of inequity here that's not being considered though. If your family doesn't make a lot of money and you don't live in a place that has a hockey rink, you will not ever get to play hockey. During the college admissions scandal earlier this year, there was an interesting side conversation about how even the implementation of the scheme itself assumed the existence of white privilege by using niche sports that only rich kids play as a way to get into schools the kids were too dumb to get into.
Just having a hockey rink by itself doesn't guarantee that more kids whose parents aren't rich will get to play hockey. But I was surprised by the support for the construction by City Council Member Marcia Martin. I recently had a conversation with her where it became clear to me that she is committed to addressing the equity problems with the ballot measure. It's top of mind her for, and so I'm choosing to put my faith in her. As the facility is implemented, I trust her to push the City Council to make sure that all residents get access to its benefits.
And the sales tax? No, I'm not a fan of that either and I don't buy Mayor Bagley's apparently made up argument that the rec center attracts lots of non-resident users, and we should monetize them with a sales tax. We requested statistics of rec center admissions from the city and received a breakdown which did not separate resident and not resident entrances. Conversations with regular rec center users revealed that they had never been asked whether they were Longmont residents.
But, to be frank, the sales tax is small. The average income of a Longmont resident is about $30,000 before taxes. Assuming 1/3 of yearly income is spent on shelter, the average resident will probably pay about $30 a year in taxes to support the construction of the facility. ([$30,000 x 0.88]-$10,000] x 0.18%/100 = $29.52)
As inequities go, that's pretty mild.
