City takes ‘leap of faith’ with fitness center

“The latest we could stay open without funding would be June, and then the doors would have to close,” Southern Prairie Family Fitness Center Director Dana Dodge shared with Creston City Council Tuesday in a bid to gain city funding assistance for the non-profit fitness center.

Dodge wasn’t the only person with this request for the council. With 13 community members and several children sharing testimonies about SPFFC at the city’s public forum and many more showing up in support of the fitness center, enough of the council agreed to the funding, passing the resolution 4-2.

Some community members shared city history.

“The Crestland Betterment Foundation was started to raise funds for a community center which could not only offer a swimming pool, but a place where kids could meet for structured activities with a gym suitable for multiple activities,” Larry Peterson said. “It took a widespread commitment to see this thing through, and it requires continued commitment if the community continues to feel it is an important part of this community.”

Angie Hance followed this sentiment, adding that “investing in [SPFFC] is investing in our city’s future.”

Marsha Fulton spoke to the health benefits she saw after joining due to her Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.

“I have Parkinson’s, and for seven years, since my diagnosis, I have taken classes at the [SPFFC]. Taking [Parkinson’s] classes there that have helped me continue to stay in the health that I am,” Fulton said. “We also have some other folks that do not have Parkinson’s. We have one that has MS. We have a couple more that are really just supportive of their spouse that needs that support, so please just continue this funding.”

Council questions

After public forum, city council members had plenty of questions for the SPFFC representatives.

“When you first approached me, you were talking 10 years, $60,000 a year, and then it became five. The last time you met with us, you said you could do three. I would just like to know what a plan is that will give us some clarity so that we aren’t on the hook forever,” council member Richard Madison asked. “You’ve cited endowments from other centers in other cities. Has any effort been made to do an endowment drive?”

Fitness center representative Skip Kenyon said while it was hard to have a plan without funding, the center has been working on an endowment fund.

“As far as the endowment, yes, I started a drive about 2018 to expand the endowment and of course ran smack dab into COVID,” Kenyon said. “We raised about $300,000 while doing it, but it’s been on hold. We picked up another $50,000 this year, so yes, it’s an ongoing program.”

Council member Josh Thompson asked about possible community partnerships, which Dodge said is currently in the works.

“Bunn donates the $2,400 for the year for those individuals to come in and use it during inclement weather or whenever they want,” Dodge said. “I’m already working with Melissa Zellmer [of Greater Connections] and we’ve got that going.”

While many individuals in the community do get cheaper membership fees or scholarships, some residents still find it difficult to pay for.

“I feel like the biggest complaint I’ve gotten is memberships, why they don’t have memberships there is cost,” council member Jen Worisek said. “I’ve had people that wanted to do the scholarships, but even at the scholarship rate, they struggled and weren’t able to maintain. I feel like we need to focus on the type of people we have in our community and how much people can really afford.”

City cost

However, the question wasn’t necessarily if the city should provide funding, but if they even could. At a previous budget workshop, city accounting manager Mandy Parson’s said the city’s general fund was already tight.

“The way we have it set up in the budget right now is we have general fund revenue of about $6.6 million and general fund expenses of about $6.8 million, so we have more expenditures than revenue,” Parsons said. “The budget is conservative. We are not going to spend $6.8 million. We may not bring in $6.6 million, though.”

The $60,000 for the fitness center will be coming from the city’s general fund. This budgeting issue was something multiple council members were concerned with.

“The $60,000 from the general fund is money that I can give to any department in the city,” council member Kiki Scarberry explained. “We’ve asked for more money for our departments and we’re told no, so this isn’t easy for us to do because we have to look at our employees in the face and explain to them why they can’t have extra employees or extra overtime or they can’t work past this because we gave it to Southern Prairie. We’re interjecting more taxpayer money into something that’s membership only, and that’s really hard.”

Despite this, council member Steve Wintermute was all for providing the funding.

“This is the most people I’ve seen in my three terms sitting up here, so I know it’s important to the community,” Wintermute said. “I’ve probably had more phone calls and people stopping at my door than any other subject.”

SPFFC representative Jennifer Samo added the center has been working hard to get everything back on track, changing from monthly board meetings to weekly meetings. Kenyon asked the council be willing to take a leap of faith.

“Some of what we’re asking here is a leap of faith. There’s got to be some faith in getting this facility going. It’s not going to be now; it’s not going to be six months. I’m hoping in a year we get enough to show you something,” Kenyon said. “We have to climb up out of this hole and get things going again, and we’ve got to have your help or it won’t work. We need you guys as our springboard to get the rest of this money raised. Without you, we’re done.”

In an attempt to compromise, Scarberry had a couple suggestions, including adding a city position to the fitness center’s board and simply having the city monitor the financials while involved.

Thompson agreed. “Something that I had thought about was having a quarterly update,” he said. “Not necessarily to distribute funds but something that we could bring back and say, hey, this is the progress we’re making and what the funding has been beneficial for, this is where we’re going, kind of answering all these hard questions we’ve been asking.”

Some elected officials still had concerns.

“I did want to reach out to the community beyond the people that are associated with the facility,” Mayor Waylon Clayton said. “There’s more people than are in this room that’s going to be paying the bill, so is anything going into the future about giving those taxpayers incentives for going there since they’re already paying, like lowering your fees.”

The SPFFC representatives said the center has the previously mentioned scholarships for such situations.

Worisek focused on the general fund money not going to city departments.

“I guess what else is kind of hard for me to swallow is, we’re going to ask our departments for budget cuts and then we turn around and give you guys money when we’re asking our departments to cut back on what they need,” she said.

However, Parsons said budget cuts weren’t being made, departments were simply being given less than their requested budget increase.

In the end, four of the seven council members voted in favor of the funding with stipulations, including the quarterly updates and a parks and recreation board member on the fitness center’s board. Council members Madison and Worisek voted against the funding. Council member Jocelyn Blazek was not present.

While city funding has been committed, the money is contingent on SPFFC raising $120,000 before receiving any assistance. This money can come from regular revenue or local donations. Though no official commitment has been made, Peterson mentioned possible funding from Greater Regional Health in the public forum.

“I attended a public meeting with the Southern Prairie board last summer and Greater Regional made a generous offer of committing one-third of the current debt if there were other partners, such as the city, willing to join in as partners,” Peterson said. “That is a great first step.”

Public forum comments

Dr. Steve Reeves: There is not a week goes by that I am not recommending to multiple patients to use this facility, to use the walking track, to use the exercise facilities that are there. This is an indoor facility, it can be used year round. There are people that need to do this to maintain mobility, maintain functionality. Parkinson’s patients, MS patients. These are things we need to support. These are faces in the real world, it’s more than just dollars and cents.

Phyllis O’Daniels: I have been a water safety person from the time I learned to swim when I was six years old in a lake. I am now 81 years old. I am in the position that I’ve been in because of swimming. Swimming is one of the number one activities for the whole body and we need to maintain a ready facility to keep us healthy.

Dr. Bill Ralston: I made a lot of community connections just by going to the [SPFFC]. By exercising in the early morning hours, I met a lot of people, a whole crew of people that I still consider good friends. Of course the exercise aspect of it was there. As the years have gone on and our family’s changed, it’s met other needs. We’ve had kids employed there and that’s been fantastic. We did the swimming team for a long time, and now I have a son that goes up there probably five times a week to socialize and for recreational activities.

Richard Anderson: The pool was alive with kids, and I walked down there to see what was going on. I went up and talked to the lady at the desk. She said this is the youth basketball program from Mount Ayr that are up here having a party. Now what do you think those kids did before and after they got there. They might have bought some ice cream or got a hamburger, something like that, maybe a tank of gas. This thing might be bigger than we think it is, folks. Let’s keep it alive.

Amy Hynek McFarland: I’m one of the general surgeons at the hospital, a multi-year member of [SPFFC] and a mother of five boys. The [SPFFC] has been a wonderful thing in our community. That was part of the reason we looked at moving here, because we had a place we could take our family and do these things. We’ve done all kinds of activities, we’ve done swimming lessons and participate in sports and everything. It would be such a shame to not help and support the [SPFFC].

Dylan Dornack: I’m here to speak on behalf of the Boy Scouts, troop 129. We have used this fitness center for many merit badges. We use it for our swimming merit badge, we use it for our fitness merit badge, there’s plenty of merit badges that we can use. With Boy Scouts, the requirement is if you want to get your Eagle Scout, you have to complete your swimming merit badge, your hiking merit badge, before you’re age 18. If we close down the [SPFFC], we will not have this resource to complete our merit badges that are required for Eagle Scout.