Letter to the Editor

New WECRD board would help change vision

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Dear editor:

I agree that it is time for a change and your editorial board's endorsement of Judy Mayne and Art Nelson for election to the WECRD Board.

My agreement with you is not a personal attack on Marsha and Jana. They are both fine people and have been serving the taxpayers as best they can since their appointment to the board to fill the seats of two board members that resigned.

It is about the vision of how current and future taxpayer dollars should be spent for recreation within the charter of the Western Elmore County Recreation District.

In as much as the community wants a recreation center with a pool, it can't afford to build it and nor should it be built with the overwhelming majority of funds coming from the taxpayer. Nor should its daily operation be sustained by a continual annual subsidy of $450,000 or more dollars annually for perpetuity. That wasn't the business model proposed to the taxpayers when the WECRD was formed back in 2000.

I said that back in 2002, I said it at a WECRD Board meeting in 2009, I said it a the town hall meeting last spring and I said it at a CLDC meeting last month. I cannot support that vision.

The WECRD needs a new vision for how the taxpayer's dollars that have been collected and saved (over $1,800,000) and the continual annual levy of over $450,000 should be spent.

Judy Mayne and Art Nelson have a different vision that more closely parallels mine and I believe the recreational needs of the community would be better served by them.

Alan Bermensolo