Three city council members oppose appropriating $54,000 for a fitness center at T.J. Recreation Center. Ernest Bobbitt, Greg Lawson and Suetta Scarbrough also oppose the city selling tombstones and headstones.
The council members expressed their opinions during a budget work session today.
Scarbrough, reading from a prepared statement, said, “We have a balanced budget, but we are off the mark with balanced needs.”
Scarbrough said she believes, “it is irresponsible to even consider $54,000 for funding a fitness center when we can’t afford $7,000 to repair the street sweeper.”
The infrastructure of the city is suffering, she said, “and will get worse while we earmark money for a fitness center that will benefit a small percentage of our citizens.”
Said Scarbrough: “If we had unlimited money, we could meet every request, but since we can’t i believe we need to seriously rethink our priorities and how we are considering spending taxpayer dollars.”
Lawson said he had concerns about the city borrowing money for the fitness center. “I don’t think it’s appropriate timing.”
On the monuments sales, Lawson said, “I don’t want to do anything to take away from local business. I don’t think it’s time for us to do that. We have a beautiful cemetery, one of the prettiest. It’s a sacred place. It costs a lot to maintain. When all the lots are sold there’s no more revenue coming to make it self supporting. At that point the city can be in the business of taking care of it forever.”
Bobbitt talked not only about the fitness center and monument sales, but other issues.
“This budget like all others has been balanced, but at what cost?” Bobbitt said, reading from a prepared statement. “We all realize that with our limited resources everything cannot be funded. However, there are specific needs that are critical to carrying our job functions and other items that are merely ‘I want items’ that are not necessary in the grand scheme of things.”
Bobbitt said departments have been severely cut in recent years. “But we can and must gradually replenish the needed personnel and equipment in order to restore the effectiveness of those departments.”
Bobbitt said the budget shows planning and development is losing another position. “We hire planning personnel who already are certified or require them to get and maintain high levels of certifications related to job requirements. With all the housing and building concerns we have we cannot aggressively pursue correcting these problems with less personnel.”
Bobbitt called the fitness center an “I want” item. “I have not had one comment or call in favor of it out of the many calls I have had. We do not need more debt. We do need to repair what we have and make the facilities we have more cost effective.”
The councilman also criticized the hiring of former Parks and Recreation Director Chris Wicker as a grant writer, calling it another “I want” position not based on need. “With at least six people on staff who can and have written grants and still do on a regular basis, the funds for this position need to be used wisely.”
Bobbitt said he understands the reason for the monument sales request and how it would reduce the cost of maintaining the cemetery and help buy equipment for public works. “But at this time I don’t believe we need to do this. The maintenance cost and equipment cost could be covered in part by funds saved on the two preceding items.”
Bobbitt also said it is time for department heads to do the jobs they are charged with. “Over the years things have become too consolidated. This has led to a variety of issues.”
Bobbitt explained with some revisions, the library director would be in charge of the library, “and do what he does best. The recreation director would do what he does best. The public works director would do what he does best. This would save time, duplication to some services, money, some equipment and increase efficiency.”
