State reps: Keep YMCA open
Quigley, Hennessey say facility is an important community resource
POTTSTOWN » The two state House members who represent Pottstown in Harrisburg have joined the growing call to keep the YMCA on North Adams Street open.
State Reps. Tim Hennessey, R26th Dist., and Tom Quigley, R146th Dist., issued a joint statement Monday, one day after The Mercury reported on the adoption of a resolution by the Pottstown School Board rejecting the closure.
“The Pottstown Y is an integral part of our local community and serves many families who otherwise may not have the recreational and educational opportunities it provides. We know the Pottstown Y struggles financially each year to help the community,
but the larger YMCA should help to subsidize our Y as part of its stated social mission,” the state representatives said in their statement.
“The institution enhances lives in a multitude of ways, including educationally for area children. The Pottstown YMCA has long partnered with Pottstown School District and Pottstown Early Action for Kindergarten Readiness to provide for the pre-K needs of the community — preparing young students for years of academic success,” said Quigley and Hennessey.
“As a supporter of early childhood education, I understand the important role the YMCA plays in the PEAK program as a partner with our local schools,” Quigley said in his statement. “It would be a disservice to our community and the students served by the Y to have to relocate, if that is even possible,” said Quigley, who has been recognized by the non-partisan Pre-K for PA campaign for his support of early childhood education.
The Y “specifically seeks to close the achievement gap for low-income youth to envision and pursue the best possible future,” according to the school district resolution.
The Y receives $296,000 every year through the school district to run its two PEAK classrooms for 40 Pre-K Counts students there.
Freedom Valley CEO Shaun Elliott told The Mercury Monday afternoon he is pleased that Quigley and Hennessey share the YMCA’s value of early education.
“We all seem to be on the same page in terms of the services we need to deliver,” Elliott said.
“Because of all of the ways that the YMCA has helped Pottstown residents over the years, but especially the educational opportunities, we call on the Freedom Valley CEO and board leadership to reconsider their decision to close this institution,” says the statement issued by Quigley and Hennessey
“The challenge for us has
been to find a sustainable model that works for Pottstown,” Elliott told The Mercury. “We don’t get government money for repairs.”
Hennessey stated that, several months ago, he has been in contact with the Department of Community Economic Development to investigate possible grants to help address infrastructure needs that are being cited as part of the Y’s decision to close the Pottstown facility.
The YMCA cited the expense of replacing an aging boiler as being among the primary financial reasons for closing the Pottstown facility.
But when the Pottstown Y merged with Phoenixville in 2007, “$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,” columnist Thomas Hylton wrote in a paid advertisement in The Mercury.
Hylton quotes James Konnick, who was president of the Pottstown YMCA board at the time, as saying “we thought it would be done right away, but now, 10
years later, a failing boiler is cited as the most pressing reason to close the Pottstown Y.”
Konnick contacted The Mercury Monday to “confirm the accuracy” of what Hylton wrote and to emphasize his displeasure with the decision by Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA to close the facility.
“I want to state that if there was any inkling or idea of closing the Pottstown YMCA facility we would have never proceeded with the merger discussion or plans,” Konnick wrote in an email Monday. “To the contrary, I have merger documents from June of 2007 stating that there were no plans to close any facility and the merger would improve the facility and expand the programs,” he wrote.
Elliott said “I have no first-hand knowledge about decisions made 10 years ago,” but said “the building has been a problem for some time.”
According to Eliott, the building needs $11.5 million in repairs and upgrades, money the larger organization does not have available to spend in just one location.
He said for the last five years, the larger organization has been providing $5 million a year to subsidize the operation and capital expenses at the Pottstown building.
“It has an operating deficit. The expenses have exceeded revenues for some time,” Elliott said. “The question we’re trying to answer now is how we provide those services outside the walls of this building.”
Elliott acknowledged that closing Pottstown’s Y, while it is building a new $30 million facility in wealthy Upper Moreland Township, may be upsetting to Pottstown area residents.
“Closing a facility is never a happy occasion,” Elliott said.
The U.S. Census puts Pottstown’s median household income in 2016 at about $45,000. Upper Moreland Township’s website, puts the median household income there at about $108,000.
“People need to understand that (new Upper Moreland) facility is replacing two other facilities,” Elliott said.
“The 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,” according to the Pottstown School Board resolution adopted unanimously at the March 15 board meeting.
But Elliott said there is only so much of an operational deficit that can be covered. He said Pottstown’s operational deficit is as high as $700,000. “It would need $2 million a year for the next five years to be viable,” he said.
Other YMCAs operate with smaller deficits, the next largest one being about $300,000, Elliott said.
He also said that there are other YMCAs operated by Freedom Valley that have buildings older than Pottstown’s.
Currently, the YMCA does not pay taxes on its property and Elliott said he is unsure if taxes would be levied were the building to be left vacant.
Since the building is the problem, Elliott agreed that if the building were not owned by the YMCA, and it did not have the onerous capital costs to shoulder, it could continue to operate its programs in the same location.
Since the announcement, a group of residents have begun an online petition calling for a reversal of the closure decision.
It reads, in part, “The closure announcement of the Pottstown YMCA is devastating to our community.
“Our town has been trying to revitalize and the loss of a local YMCA further hampers our appeal to potential investors who might live and work here.
“We were once a sustainable Y when independent, but post-merger, this changed. We were assured that this merger would increase our fiscal security. Instead the merger destroyed it,” the petition reads.
“The Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA continues to expand its reach to over 20 facilities, yet it continues to dissolve any facilities that do not meet its standard of profitability,” reads the petition, written by Abby We.
Elliott said he has been made aware of the petition.