Next steps for Ricketts subject of meetings
POTTSTOWN >> In the wake of the surprise decision by the Olivet Boys and Girls Club to back out of running the Ricketts Community Center, at least two public meetings have been scheduled on what comes next.
Pottstown Borough Council will hold a special meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 21, at 5:30 p.m.
It will be held in council chambers on the third floor of borough hall, 100 E. High St.
According to the agenda posted on the borough website, the subject of the Ricketts Center is the only item on the agenda.
Additionally Hobart’s Run, The Hill School’s economic development arm for the neighborhood around the school, will hold a meeting at the center, 658 Beech St., the next day.
The group already had a meeting planned for 6 p.m. Thursday and will now pivot to devote some of it to the future of Ricketts.
That meeting was “originally to share info about the DCED grant for lighting and safety-related improvements in that area,” according to a post on the group’s Facebook page.
“The meeting will still occur at the Center as planned — but with the current Ricketts issue in the forefront, we encourage community leaders and others interested in finding a solution to attend so we can all share ideas,” the group wrote.
Questions about which programs are operating and which are not continue to swirl around the situation.
One answer was forthcoming Thursday evening.
Paul Winterbottom asked The Mercury to communicate that “the Ricketts Adult Wellness program is still in operation. “Can
you let the people of Pottstown know I did not go to Reading, nor do I plan to? Our Fitness Bootcamp and weight training continues,” he wrote.
It was just two days after borough council had unanimously renewed Olivet’s lease for the center for another four years that the club announced it was leaving Pottstown immediately. “The board of directors voted to return to their original mission of maintaining its focus, energy and funding on the youth of Reading and Berks County,” stated a terse press release issued late Wednesday afternoon.
The announcement has left the borough scrambling to complete programming at the center for the remainder of the year, and to find a way to operate it in 2020.
“Can you let the people of Pottstown know I did not go to Reading, nor do I plan to? Our Fitness Bootcamp and weight training continues.”
— Paul Winterbottom, Ricketts fitness instructor.