Woodstock’s youth center task force wants town taxpayers to foot a third of the cost of the expanded new intergenerational community center being proposed for a Rock City Road site. It is calling for a town referendum to finance that portion through a ten-to-eleven-million-dollar town bond. The rest will come from private and governmental sources.
“We’re recommending that the town hold a referendum that would basically ask taxpayers to pay for a third of the project,” said task force chair Ben Schachter. Under no scenario, he said, was it going to propose that the town could possibly pay for a full $30-million project. If grants and private donations don’t come through, “We hold off on building it.”
The task force was formed more than a year ago to address the problem of outgrowing the old, outdated youth center and grew into reimagining the entire Andy Lee Field campus.
“This is not just about fixing a youth center or putting in a pool, it’s about creating this intergenerational campus where we can all be amongst each other,” Schachter said. “Not everyone’s going to love every piece of it. That’s not what this is about. But it’s the idea to try to create this campus where we can all share in the enjoyment of this beautiful space.”
At least one town resident was wary of the town being saddled with high operational costs.
John Ludwig noted that a new community swimming pool in Arkville costs $740,000 to operate.
Another resident voiced concerns about operating costs.
“It’s not just the construction costs of these proposals that must be considered. It’s the cost of staffing, maintenance, energy, repairs and insurance that will appear on our yearly bills,” Jude Silato warned.
Others were attracted by the holistic vision being presented by the task force.
Task force member Laurie Osmond said the youth center could be a grounding force to make sure that more children had a safe space where they could talk about their problems “and perhaps the addiction bug would not hit them.”
“The idea that we have seniors up here and we have to be more inclusive for seniors and youth is incredibly important,” Rebecca Turmo said. “And that’s one of the things that I’m really excited to see is an emphasis of possibly bringing them together.”
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