The Elyria Neighborhood Association’s board of directors earlier this month learned that the Anna Louise Johnson Recreation Center, a fixture in Elyria since 1939, may be closed. This is ostensibly in response to the new budget mandate to save money, and certainly not because Councilwoman Judy Montero wants to run a new highway past Elyria Park. Instead of the possible solution of cutting one staff position each at its 49 recreation centers and asking communities to fill the vacancies with volunteers, “suffer the little children” will become a reality in Elyria.
Perhaps the $271,232 proposed savings by shuttering Johnson Rec will be re-allocated for staffing the new $11 million Forest City Recreation Center approved with $500 million in new bonding projects in November 2007. Or perhaps Denver needed a supervisor to administer the $60 million bond for restoring the Boettcher Concert Hall, or the $90 million for Botanic Gardens’ rehab.
Although Denver Public Schools recently announced an additional 2,600 kids this year, largely in the Northeast Denver area which encompasses Elyria, for some reason the Johnson Recreation Center has become surplus. Although Nestle Purina added a $35 million automated warehouse to its operation in South Elyria this year, generating millions of new taxes to Denver County while making every Elyrian’s supper smell like dog food, the budget for Elyria’s only community activity center simply cannot be sustained in the face of all the needed cuts.
Perhaps these cuts stem from the declining tax revenue resulting from the 70 percent loss of property value from the proposed Interstate 70 realignment. Not a penny of the $30 million being spent jackhammering joints on the I-70 viaduct over Elyria every night can be spent restoring the splash guards over the neighborhood, which, compared with the rest of Denver, averages 200 percent more families with children, and a more than 200 percent higher rate of those children born to teenagers. In Elyria, 91 percent of the kids qualify for DPS free lunch, and 70 percent of the average household income is earned while supporting double the number of occupants per house.
Elyria’s kids need the Johnson Recreation Center and the services it provides.
Thomas R. Anthony is president of the Elyria Neighborhood Association.
