Teens shout as they play on the gym basketball court. In another room, youngsters sit quietly at computers, finishing homework. In the nearby game room, photos of recent high school graduates who won college scholarships hang on the walls.
Drawing more than 200 attendees even on the coldest of nights, the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center in Montbello is held up by Denver recreation officials as a model of how nonprofits can help transform an unwieldy assortment of recreation centers into a national model.
Their vision: well-funded nonprofits taking underused assets off the city’s hands, freeing up resources to bolster services at larger, regional, city-owned recreation centers.
But so far, the city’s effort to attract nonprofits has been rocky. What city officials call fostering partnerships, critics term privatization or, worse, abandonment. Only one nonprofit has stepped up to submit an actual proposal to run a center, leaving city officials to scramble to continue reduced, limited service for three centers, Johnson, Globe ville and College View, originally budgeted for transition to nonprofits next month.
Because of protests, the city also delayed for nine months efforts to find a nonprofit to run a fourth, the La Alma Recreation Center.
The outcome of the debate will play a large role in shaping the city’s recreation system, which officials hope can be modernized and make Denver a national leader in partnering with nonprofits and social-service providers.
“We’re both trying to serve the same neighborhoods, the same citizens, whether they be the youth population, or the senior population, or those with disabilities,” said Kevin Patterson, the city’s parks and recreation director.
Critics say the city is trying to rid itself of centers in poorer neighborhoods at the same time it is buying land for a recreation center along Colfax Avenue and building another center in the new Stapleton neighborhood on the wealthier east side.
Supporters counter that the east side has a paucity of recreation centers, while the areas slated for closures have the highest concentration of centers in the city.
They add that the money for the east-side centers came from voter approval of a bond improvement package, not the operating budget.
Skeptical in La Alma
Earlier this year, city officials had high hopes of transitioning La Alma to a nonprofit.
They pointed out that the Boys and Girls Clubs of Metro Denver planned to construct a building directly across the street from the La Alma center, which would create duplication. They highlighted the success the Boys and Girls Clubs and the Denver Broncos had in Montbello, running a center once slated for demolition.
“It is still on our radar screen,” said Kathy Luna, the chief operating officer for the Boys and Girls Clubs. “We’ve taken a step back and said let the community and city figure out if this is feasible.”
She said that if her nonprofit ends up coming into La Alma, it could work with other nonprofits to ensure that senior services continue during the day, when children aren’t using the building. Luna added that the nonprofit could attract private donors to contribute the $100,000 for renovations that she says La Alma needs.
Residents of the west-side La Alma/Lincoln neighborhood remain skeptical.
During one recent meeting to discuss the La Alma center’s future, they demanded that city officials leave. Thursday night, nearly 60 people showed up to protest at a meeting of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board.
“They want to abandon their commitment to the community,” said protester Dean Sanchez, 33, who has worked out at La Alma, translated as “the soul,” since he was a teen.
The doubts have intensified as the city has been unable to attract formal proposals from nonprofits to run centers. Only one nonprofit submitted a proposal after 62 expressed initial interest.
City officials hope more will step up once they address concerns about an 80-page, cumbersome document a nonprofit must fill out for a proposal.
“Activists in this neighborhood fought long and mighty hard to get the center built, and they aren’t likely to give up the recreation center — a cultural icon for the La Alma/Lincoln neighborhood,” said Councilwoman Judy Montero, who represents the area.
Relics from the ’50s
The problem, from the view of city officials, is that the city owns 29 recreation centers, many built in the 1950s and 1960s under a completely different game plan. Square dances and community meetings were what planners envisioned back then, not the mega complexes with water sports and big gyms that the public wants now. And the centers are costly. Attendance fees pay about 20 percent of the $11.6 million they cost to run.
Chantal Unfug, senior adviser to the manager of parks and recreation, said the city can’t afford to continue pouring money into the current system.
“This isn’t a game,” she said, stressing that partnerships are better than outright closures — which is what Jefferson County Public Schools is recommending for 11 schools. “With 29 recreation centers, the city can’t continue to sustain them at the level we’ve been sustaining them.”
Hanging on for decades
As far back as 1988, recreation officials have targeted some “low-usage” centers for closure. Yet, through the years, the centers have persisted.
In 2007, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper tried to cut the hours of rec centers with low attendance. He restored those hours after residents protested, but changed them to offer Saturday service after citizens complained that was the reason for low attendance. City officials say it stayed low — and in some cases dropped.
After the 2007 battle, the mayor convened a rec-center task force that unveiled recommendations in January after 21 community meetings.
When this year’s budget crisis hit, Hickenlooper followed through on some of those recommendations and slated the Johnson, Globeville, La Alma and College View centers for transition to nonprofits.
Montero said the impoverished communities she represents on the west side now distrust the city.
Other council members privately grumble that Montero’s district has 10 recreation centers, more than any other council district.
“If you don’t change what is happening now, there is no money to build good rec centers because we’re staffing all these small, poor rec centers and paying for the lights and everything else,” said Councilwoman Peggy Lehmann.
“We have a mid-20th century recreation model going into 2010,” Lehmann said.
