I have friends who are staunch supporters of building a crown jewel of a community center with the thought that “if we build it, they will come.” I have other friends who are vehemently opposed to spending a penny on something they deem frivolous in the midst of tough economic times. And I have other friends who just don’t know what to think.
I’m undecided about the proposal for a new Cook County Community Center myself. I don’t want to see a behemoth built that we can’t support. But I also don’t want to see tax dollars invested in something too small to be anything different or better than what we have now. If the county is going to bond and collect $20 million dollars in sales tax—and use $11 million for the community center, we should have something to show for it.
I’m holding out my support— or lack of support—until I know more about the final plan.
The wait is frustrating. I’ve gone to the county’s website, www.co.cook.mn.us, several times in the past few weeks, hoping to see updated drawings and minutes of meetings following the May 10 – 11 public meetings. There has been nothing other than announcements of upcoming steering committee meetings.
Prior to the contentious public meetings, the county was doing a pretty good job posting information to the website about the planning process.
Posted to the website are detailed minutes of past discussion such as the March 16, 2011 consideration of demolishing the west end of the school and making a connection to the community center. An idea obviously abandoned, but one that shows how “outside of the box” the group was thinking.
The next batch of minutes on April 15, 2011 answers many of the questions the public keeps asking. The minutes describe four options, ranging from incorporating the existing community center into a new design to the latest proposal for a stand-alone facility between the current community center and the school— with pros and cons listed for each option.
The Cook County News- Herald has been including the website address as a sidebar in all of our coverage of the community center planning, to help citizens find answers for themselves. It seems no matter how many articles we include; how many questions we answer, a reader will come up with something new to wonder about. The county website has been a great supplement to our coverage.
But the Internet information stream seems to have run dry. I know there is a lot going on. In our May 28 issue, we shared a report from Commissioner Sue Hakes letting the public know that the steering committee had recommended eliminating the second floor multi-purpose meeting rooms, instead putting them on the ground level where the Senior Center would have been if the Senior Center had wanted to be there, which it doesn’t.
I can only imagine the conversation as the steering committee attempts to whittle the plans down to an affordable size without making the building so much wasted space. But this information isn’t making it to the website as it was before the discordant public meetings. I hope the county, or its representative, ORB Management, can find time to update the website information again soon. The public needs to know what is happening—even if that means the steering committee hears some grumbling.
Because just as government officials must take the responsibility for getting information out to citizens, the public must face its responsibility. As Kelly Swearingen of Grand Marais said at one public meeting—people need to pay attention and learn all they can. And then they need to contact their commissioner with suggestions—respectful, helpful suggestions. That’s the only way we’ll ever develop a final plan. Information is the currency of democracy. Thomas Jefferson
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