Henry Smorynski, Sartell
Hopefully the Sartell City Council will come to the right decisions about the proposed Community Center related to its size, spaces provided and location. However, one cannot be confident of that conclusion happening in 2016. Sartell’s strategies for the planning of the Community Center have been inadequate and problematic from the beginning.
What are the numerous planning failures clearly evident in planning for the Center? First, the City Council has not completed its long-range plan which is supposed to guide city decisions. Second, the city decided to hire an architect, project manager and consultant on operating costs without having first accomplished a whole community (involving all ages) input-supported plan clearly identifying Center priorities. Third, the Council did not solicit new information via a comprehensive survey of the entire community on Center preferences and likely utilization of Center spaces. The city has used outdated data (more than seven years old) about the Center. That information does not fully reflect the current city whose population today is one-third larger with new residents. Fourth, it has not engaged in a systematic review of other community centers in cities of a similar size in Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota that face similar climate conditions. What has worked in other centers has not been thoroughly researched. Fifth, the Council has talked about not denying future Councils a fiscal capacity to spend in the interest of the community, when it has already delayed the Community Center project for more than 10 years. It has failed to complete a promised long-range plan for the next decade for the city that was supposed to provide a “guiding vision” for the city’s future. Sixth, the Council still debates whether there should be one building or two. Citizen input and interest-group input has argued consistently for one Center benefiting all community members. Seventh, by seeking input from interest groups, particularly athletic-minded ones, it has failed to create any consultative working group representing all ages in the community. Nor has it created a democratically selected group of community members to work directly with the three-person professional team the city has chosen to work on the Center.
So the efforts to turn community desires and needs into a high-quality Center shared by all remains at risk. The discussion of a site for the Center, for example, does not seek public input, but puts the wagon before the horse by first attempting to define the Center and then beginning to look for sites. It should instead let the community weigh in on a very limited number of potential sites that are available for not only original construction but also that will lend themselves to further development over time at a reasonable cost considering community access and traffic patterns.
The plan continues to evolve without being data informed and holding significant numbers of open meetings seeking input from all ages in Sartell. It continues to favor Center construction based on wish lists from a limited number of individuals and interest groups rather than from the community as a whole. All of Sartell’s residents will have to pay the tax dollars and user fees necessary for a well-run Center. The Council seems to be headed toward building a Center through a closed process. It’s seemingly not committed to the extensive and frequent public meetings asked for by Councilman David Peterson. Can the Council get an effective and fair planning process back on track and deliver a high quality Center in 2016? Recent Council actions and discussions put that outcome in very serious doubt to the ultimate detriment of both taxpayers and future users of the Center.
