After more than two months of butting heads, city politicians have reached an agreement over the new O’Fallon Park Recreation Center in North St. Louis City. The $19.5-million, 75,000 square-foot facility was originally scheduled to open on July 1.
When the doors open at the new center – which will now be sometime next year – 1,300 low-income children will get $25 annual memberships, Mayor Francis G. Slay announced at a press conference Monday.
This news was perhaps the most celebrated difference from the original, contested agreement. Some changes were made in the operational financial breakdown, but certain questions – the ones that actually led to the stall in passing legislation – remain unanswered.
When the city selected the YMCA to run the facility, the city agreed to pay the center’s revenue shortfalls – up to $1.1 million annually. The city anticipated that it would cost $2.1 million to operate the center, and the YMCA expected it could bring in $900,000 from membership fees and other revenues. The city would also give an “annual security allowance” up to $110,000.
The city’s agreement with the Y, which was submitted through Alderman Antonio French’s Board Bill 108 on June 22, clearly stated that up to $700,000 per year would come from the city’s one-eighth-cent recreation sales tax. Yet the balance would come from “any other revenue source,” and that’s where aldermen raised concerns.
If the city contracts with the YMCA for 10 years as originally proposed, that would leave $500,000 a year, or $5 million over 10 years, unfunded in the facility’s financial plan, said Alderman Terry Kennedy, chairman of the African-American Aldermanic Caucus.
In a Sept. 14 caucus statement to the mayor, Kennedy said that this lack of planning would “leave aldermen in the position of having to cut other areas of an already tight city budget each year.”
“The lack of identifying the source of these funds would also place the continued operation of this facility in jeopardy,” Kennedy said.
In the final negotiations last week, the Y’s contract was knocked down to five years instead of 10. Gary Bess, director of the city’s parks and forestry department, was disappointed in the change because he believed the 10-year contract would lock the YMCA into providing service at the facility, even if the organization were losing money on the deal.
And still, in final talks, the missing $500,000 annually did not “really come front and center,” Bess said.
Other disagreements took center stage, mainly how the Y would provide financial aid to residents. French didn’t believe the YMCA clearly stated its financial aid formula in the agreement and insisted that it be included. The original agreement simply stated, “The YMCA will use its reasonable best efforts to provide financial aid and assistance based on need.”
The YMCA has provided recreation and family-based community programs in St. Louis for more than 155 years. At the Monsanto YMCA in North St. Louis County, 80 percent of its members, who are largely African-American, receive some financial assistance. At every YMCA, the formula is the same. Families with income below $31,000 will get 10 percent to 90 percent discount, depending on their financial situation.
Now the formula will be written into the board bill.
Boys & Girls Clubs’ role
French also contended that the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis (formerly Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club) should get a piece of the YMCA’s subsidy. Originally the Y and the club agreed that any club member would be allowed to use the facility, under supervision of a Boys & Girls Club staffer.
In the new agreement, the Boys & Girls Clubs will receive $100,000 of the YMCA’s operating budget to provide programming for at-risk kids.
Flint W. Fowler, president of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater St. Louis, said his organization understood that the YMCA would need the $1.1 million to address the basic building operations.
“We did however want to make sure that some funding was available for us to establish and operate some level of programming,” Fowler said. “We looked to the city to address this issue and not the YMCA.”
In the new agreement, the Boys & Girls Clubs and the YMCA will both provide 650 youth memberships at $25 annually. To this, French declared “victory” in a Sept. 24 statement after Slay’s announcement.
“Some fights are definitely worth fighting,” French stated. “And this was one of those fights. The gains that we’ve won mean that at least 1,300 children are guaranteed access to this beautiful facility.”
However according to Bess, when the YMCA and the club originally responded to the city’s request for proposals, they agreed to supply 650 memberships at $25 then.
“Antonio’s contention was that we needed that agreement attached to the legislation,” Bess said.
