Council opts for aquatic center work session after long, testy meeting

Columbus Council debated, discussed and heard presentations concerning the Columbus Aquatic Center for two-and-a-half sometimes tense hours Tuesday night before determining they would need a special-called work session in March to discuss it further.

The discussions accounted for fully half of Tuesday’s five-hour meeting.

Councilors heard first from a self-described “swim mom” during the public agenda, then heard two presentations immediately afterward during the city manager’s agenda. Brian Abeyta, co-chair of the Aquatic Center Task Force gave a presentation of ideas to help fund and manage the budget-plagued facility. Then Deputy City Manager Pam Hodge, standing in for Parks and Recreation Director James Worsley, who was out of town, presented his report on options for funding the center from his existing budget.

Hodge presented a package of 17 cost-savings options, ranging from closing other facilities completely down to privatizing the Britt David Pottery Studio, but focused specifically on four that the administration is recommending that council consider:

▪ Redirect a portion of the hotel-motel tax that currently goes to the Civic Center, Trade Center, River Center and the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, which would produce $600,000.

▪ Eliminate the $300,000 annual subsidy to Bull Creek and Oxbow Creek golf courses.

▪ Complete the transition of the after- and before-school programs that the parks and rec department is operating for the Muscogee County School District. Previous reports indicated that would produce $300,000 in savings.

▪ Unfund Golden Park, which would save the city $83,000.

Councilor Skip Henderson apparently took issue with some of the proposals on the larger list that included completely closing some facilities.

“I think it’s ridiculous to think that we would consider closing pools that we spent all that money to put up. If someone wanted to make a statement by putting it on there, I think it’s a horrendous statement and a waste of time,” Henderson said. “I do, however, think that this council is a legislative body, but we’re part-time. We can’t sit here and walk through all these things individually.

“I think we’re putting the cart in front of the horse. This council should not sit here and go through these items individually and tell you, I like this and I like that.”

Mayor Teresa Tomlinson said the longer list of options was not presented for consideration, but to give council an idea of the list from which the four recommendations was pulled.

“The presentation was made before discussion was opened and the four that are being recommended were put forth, with the 17 to inform council that there were other choices to be made,” Tomlinson said. “But we will come back with more specific recommendations.”

Councilor Judy Thomas said she could not make any suggestions about the four recommendations until she had more detailed information about them.

“One of the things I would like you to do, for example, take the $250,000 from Oxbow (Creek). I heard what you just said. But in these kinds of things, I need to know does that $250,000 mean Oxbow’s going to close? I need to know what impact that is going to have on Oxbow,” Thomas said.

“I can’t sit here and tell you that I agree with No. 1, 4, 7, 12 and 14, without some more information. What I don’t want you to do is to send me this chart because this chart doesn’t have enough information on it for me to make a decision. “

Late in the discussion, Councilor Mimi Woodson suggested that stopping and scheduling a work session would be a good idea.

“This is a lot of information and we need a lot more information and it’s already 10 o’clock at night and we haven’t even gone through your (Hugley’s) agenda,” Woodson said. “I would suggest that we come back in a work session, and we dedicate it just to this.

“Everybody’s getting tired, they’re getting irritated and we still have more on the agenda. We’re going to be ineffective. We’re getting irritated right now and we’re not being focused. And we’re just blowing up.”

Council voted unanimously to hold a work session on the aquatic center at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 15.

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 3:14 PM with the headline "Council opts for aquatic center work session after long, testy meeting."