The Village People were wrong

This week marks one year in our house and, wow, it has been fantastic.  I started writing for pay, have more piano students than ever before, the kids have great friends in the cul de sac, Joseph’s store is doing well, we have Rockwellian relationships with our neighbors, and grandma and grandpa are just an hour up the road.  

Nothing is perfect and there have been tough things too — but overall the move to Colorado has been wonderful for our family.

We kind of live in the boonies — and the number one reason we bought our house here was for the rec center facilities built into our neighborhood.  The YMCA-run facility offers sports programs for the kids, swimming lessons at our indoor pool, a cardio room, weights, fitness classes and a childwatch program so I can workout while the kids play with their friends.

To say I love the YMCA is an understatement.  I’m there four to five times a week.  I can count the inches and pounds I’ve lost through regular exercise, but I could never quantify the effect on my overall well being. I’ve met wonderful people in our neighborhood and formed great friendships and strong sense of community.  

So you can imagine my distress when I went to the annual town hall meeting and discovered that the neighborhood governing board was on a mission to fire the YMCA.  Evidently everybody doesn’t love the YMCA.

Allegations were flying – misuse of funds, lack of accountability to the neighborhood, disabled children told they can’t use the facility, outsiders (meaning non-residents) being let in for free.  The residents in attendance were whipped into a frenzy.  It’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a mob.  In the end, people were screaming and yelling for the board to fire the YMCA.  

It was horrible. I saw very few of the residents I’ve met at the YMCA.  Most likely, they were home feeding their small kids and putting them to bed.  After all, the meeting started at 6:00 p.m. on a Wednesday.  I might not have been there except I was covering the meeting for the newspaper.  I had very few friends in the audience when I set aside my journalist neutrality and stood to defend the YMCA.  

But it was in vain.

Within 24 hours, largely without the knowledge of regular YMCA users, the contract between the neighborhood and the YMCA was severed.  We were asked to trust our elected board members that they could run the facility as well as the time-tested YMCA and do it for less money.

Call me a skeptic, but I’m having a hard time jumping on that bandwagon.  My crazy notion is that the board should have posted a sign at the rec center inviting everyone to a meeting to decide the fate of the facility.  They should have presented two sides — here’s how the YMCA does it, here’s what we would do — and then asked for a vote.  To ask for blind faith is absurdly arrogant of the board members who think they can pull this off.

Now all we can do is hold the board accountable and make sure they follow through on their promise – same programs, less money.  I’ve been neck deep trying to organize YMCA users and make a forceful showing.  So far I’ve convinced the board they need to hold a public meeting to present their plan and I’ve gotten great feedback from Y users about the programs they want to see maintained. 

In this I’ve learned a lot of lessons.

• Always vote. I didn’t vote in the neighborhood board elections this spring, and so I had no idea who was representing me.  I missed my chance to choose the people who had the power to make these decisions.
• Participate. I never went to the parks and recreation committee meetings, although I thought about it from time to time.  My voice for the YMCA would have been valuable in the months leading up to the rabble rousing town hall meeting.
• Tap the Community.  It has been so easy to get people involved now that our rec center world is on it’s head.  It really doesn’t take much effort to really kick and scream and make sure your voice is heard.
• Speak Up About the Good.  If it bleeds it leads.  The board heard complaints from residents, but never any positive feedback about the facility.  If you really like something, speak up about it.

I can see all kinds of connections to larger issues both statewide and nationally.  I’m learning the hard way what happens when you get lulled into a sense of security.  It takes time and we are all busy, but if we don’t speak up to our elected officials, we run the risk of getting the rug pulled out from under us.

P.S.  The allegations against the Y are mostly just that – allegations largely based on distorted information and flat-out falsehoods.