School board opposes YMCA closure
POTTSTOWN » The Pottstown School Board Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution which “adamantly opposes” the closure of the Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA on North Adams Street.
School Board President Amy Francis, who noted she is “generations deep” in Pottstown, said she is “upset about YMCA’s decision to leave Pottstown. It will affect students so much and its trickledown effects will be felt for a long time. This is yet another place where advocacy for Pottstown is needed” she said.
Advocacy, it appears, will now come from the school district, among other sources.
Pottstown Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez said he will forward the resolution to the office of Shaun Elliott, the CEO of Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA “and to the head of the national organization if necessary.”
An email from The Mercury to Elliott’s office sent early Friday afternoon and seeking comment on the resolution had generated no reply by press time.
Rodriguez told the board the community “has been buzzing
about closure of YMCA. The decision was made without input from community stakeholders and as details of merger have surfaced, serious questions about closure have come to light.”
Rodriguez said some of those questions have been raised “in the newspaper,” by which he likely means a series of five columns by former school board member and Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas Hylton, that have been published as paid advertisements in The Mercury in the past two weeks.
All five are also available on the Pottstown Citizens for Enlightened Leadership website — www.pottstowncitizens.org
In those columns, Hylton explored the 138yearold history of the YMCA and its mission, as well as whether the organization has betrayed that mission. “The YMCA believes that ‘everyone should have the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive.’ Apparently, that no longer includes Pottstown,” he wrote.
Perhaps more significantly, since finances and an aging boiler have been cited as the reason to close the Pottstown facility, Hylton explored the finances of the YMCA mergers which preceded this decision to close.
“Pottstown brought a $2.8 million endowment fund to the newly merged non-profit, to be called the Freedom Valley YMCA” when it merged with the Phoenixville organization in 2007, he wrote.
“Of this, $1 million was to be used for the Upper Perkiomen capital campaign, and $1.8 million was to make improvements to the Pottstown branch, including technology upgrades, and to pay down existing mortgage obligations. One item specifically mentioned on Pottstown’s to-do list was fixing the boiler,” Hylton wrote.
He quotes James Konnick, who was president of the Pottstown YMCA board at the time, as saying “we thought it would be done right away,” Konnick said, “but now, 10 years later, a failing boiler is cited as the most pressing reason to close the Pottstown Y.”
Issues of mission and the abandonment of lowincome communities in favor of wealthy ones are mentioned in the threepage resolution adopted Thursday by the school board.
The Y “specifically seeks to close the achievement gap for lowincome youth to envision and pursue the best possible future,” the resolution notes.
“Two thirds or more of Pottstown students come from low-income and minority families” and the “Pottstown School District has one of the lowest median incomes in southeastern Pennsylvania,” the resolution notes.
The Y is one of the school district’s partners in its nationally recognized early education initiative called PEAK and receives $296,000 a year from the school district for 40 Pre-K counts students taught there. It is also adjacent to the high school and middle school campus and thus easily accessed by Pottstown students without the need of a car to get there, according to the resolution.
Since the regional merger of the YMCAs in southeastern Pennsylvania, new facilities have been constructed in wealthier areas such as Haverford and Upper Perkiomen and a $30 million facility is now under construction in Upper Moreland, it notes.
Upper Moreland Township’s web site lists the median household income there as $107,969.
Pottstown’s 2016 median family income, according to the U.S. Census, was $45,051.
“YMCA officials have stated that profits from their highly successful facilities in suburban areas allow the YMCA to fulfill its mission of offering programs to all residents regardless of their ability to pay,” the school board’s resolution notes.
“YMCA officials acknowledge that some YMCAs will cost more to money to operate than they bring in revenue, and recognize the YMCAs obligation to subsidize those branches that are financially challenged,” according to the resolution.
The resolution is part of a growing wave of opposition to the closure first announced with little warning last November.
YMCA officials put together a committee of community members to advise on ways some Y services could be continued in the community.
It has since announced that its day care facilities will be housed in a former for-profit day
care building located in Lower Pottsgrove.
That advisory committee, which includes Barth Elementary School Principal Ryan Oxenford, was specifically told that the idea of keeping the facility open was not an option, Rodriguez told the board Thursday night.
But it appears the committee may be on the verge of ignoring that piece of direction, Rodriguez said.
Opposition to the closure has been building on the committee and other organizations are beginning to consider action to stop it.
Jonathan Corson, president of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP, said his organization has a member on the committee. He said the NAACP’s executive committee has been discussing the matter and has “serious concerns” about the closure and its impact on the community and may bring its position on the matter to a full vote of its membership.
Pottstown’s first YMCA was incorporated in 1880, “using rented rooms. John Meigs, headmaster of The Hill School,” Hylton wrote.
Its first building was erected at King and Evans streets in 1913. “The building, enlarged 10 years later, featured a swimming pool, gym, auditorium, bowling alleys, health club, and 68 dormitory rooms for men.”
Among the beneficiaries of the early Y’s services was Robert P. Smith, who managed the first facility’s cafeteria and went on to found Mrs. Smith’s Pies, a company which put Pottstown on the food industry map and was sold to Kellogg in 1976 for $56 million, according to Hylton.
Over the years, Smith donated millions to the YMCA in Pottstown.
The closure of Pottstown YMCA “will affect students so much and its trickle-down effects will be felt for a long time.” Amy Francis, Pottstown School Board President