The Emporia City Commission discussed the relationship between the city, the Jones Aquatic Center and Trusler Field at its regular study session Wednesday morning.
The discussion began with the annual field reports from the aquatic center and the ball fields.
Regarding Trusler field, Assistant City Manager Mark McAnarney explained that the city and ESU have an agreement in which the city, through the recreation commission, operates and maintains the fields from May to September and uses them for tournaments. According to Tom McEvoy, director of the Emporia Recreation Center, the arrangement has been good for both the school and the city because it avoids the costs of building and maintaining a separate arena.
For the Jones Aquatic Center, McEvoy was there to request $37,000 for repairs and maintenance. McAnarney said that for this year, the city had budgeted $97,170 for operations at the aquatic center, and had only spent $67,892. Instead of giving the full amount, commissioners decided it would let the center have the balance of the budgeted amount, or $24,278.
Much of that money is needed for the aquatic center to comply with a new statute that requires grate covers that people will not be sucked against or stuck in. According to McEvoy, the center doesn’t have a suction filter system but instead uses a ballast tank. “But you also have to have a grate cover that you can’t get your hair entangled or you can’t get a finger entangled in, and we don’t have that,” he said. There are 17 grate covers that need to be replaced, at a cost of up to $15,000.
Mayor Bobby Agler suggested to McEvoy a comprehensive plan that will bring all the elements of the recreation commission together. “It seems to me that maybe we ought to be looking at a comprehensive, overall contract between the city, who owns the facilities — the aquatic center, the baseball diamonds and the parks — and really nail down once and for all what the interrelationships are, what the obligations are and what the costs are,” he said. Agler said it is counter-productive to continually keep having “cherry-picking” discussions whenever various problems arise. “With a comprehensive plan, you and your board then have something to plan on. You know what the funding limitations are, we know from our budget process precisely what our obligations are and expectations. ... That, to me, makes more sense from a governance standpoint on facility ownership.”
“From my perspective, it’s time to cut to the chase and get some agreements worked out.”