With their minds set on providing Goshen County residents with more recreation options, county Community Facilities Joint Powers Board members discussed various funding ideas and recreation facility possibilities at Thursday night’s meeting in Torrington.

The board previously discussed looking into putting a special facilities tax on an election ballot via a petition, but board secretary/treasurer Jim Hudelson told the group a state statute prohibits such an attempt.

To put such a measure up for vote, he said the Goshen County Commissioners and a two-thirds majority of the county’s incorporated municipalities must grant approval. That means a combination of two town councils like Lingle and Yoder could kill a proposed tax before it even went to vote.

Passing a the tax would require a marketing effort aimed toward communities across the county, board president Tim Pieper said, but multiple board members said they thought the measure would pass if it made its way onto the ballot.

Because town and city councils appear to be the gatekeepers in the process, Hudelson said he’d be willing to appear before the various governing bodies in the near future to feel out the situation.

“It’s important to get the council’s on board,” board member Todd Peterson said.

Peterson also reminded the board that an attempt to put a similar initiative on the ballot was shot down about 12 years ago, but board member Dana Youtz said he thought that effort largely failed because too big of a project was being introduced at one time.

In looking at a special facilities tax, Youtz said the public may be more accepting of a ballot measure if the county first opens a facility without the help of tax monies. If the project is well received, then the board could consider putting something on the ballot down the road to expand the recreation, he said.

“We may not need to start with a $10 million complex,” Youtz said, later adding that “we need to start small and expand as it grows.”

Additionally, board member Lex Madden mentioned the possibility of someone on the board getting in touch with Wyoming’s delegation in Washington D.C., to see if there are any funding or grant programs to help a recreation center get off the ground.

“We’ve got to kick some stones and see what’s out there,” Peterson said in agreement.

While securing funding for a recreation center is critical, the board also turned its attention to looking at facilities in the region that might serve as models for a Goshen County project.

Pieper provided board members with documents and schematics of the Greeley Family FunPlex in Greeley, Colo. The facility cost upwards of $10 million and opened in 2006.

Elsewhere, Madden said he met with an official at the YMCA in Scottsbluff to learn more about that operation.

In addition to having approximately 8,000 members, he said it’s important for board members to remember a recreation center also creates area jobs. About 70 people work at the facility in Scottsbluff, Neb., Madden said.

Whether the county pursues something like the YMCA he visited or the recreation facility in Greeley, Madden said he thinks it’s important for county to start from the ground up on a project.

Overall, Pieper and the board came to the conclusion that addressing the issue of recreation in the county is the board’s core purpose moving forward.

“More and more, we’re losing more with recreation for not just kids but people of all ages,” Youtz said of the county’s situation.

Pieper also informed the board that he also recently spoke with Goshen County Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Lisa Johnson, who said addressing the recreation issue will be her group’s top priority after it helps new prison employees find housing.



In other committee action:

- Board Director Tammi Harshberger debriefed the board on last weekend’s CenturyLink & Goshen County Rec Youth Basketball Tournament. She said 34 teams participated in the event, including six from within Goshen County. The tournament fielded 40 squads last year, but Harshberger said six teams withdrew from this year’s event because they couldn’t secure hotel rooms in the area.

“They played a lot of games. It was good court time,” she said of the event.



For the complete article see the 11-20-2009 issue.

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