CIVIC CENTER COFFERS LOW

The Cape Girardeau Civic Center is out of money, but it's not out of hope.

The Center's board of directors met Wednesday morning to find a way to tide it over until the local institution can get more stable funding from grants or the United Way. The most pressing concerns are upcoming utility and insurance bills.

The board decided to hold a fund-raising auction in the next four to six weeks, said board member Tamara Zellars Buck.

The Civic Center, 232 Broadway, owns a building with a gym and a few other rooms that it uses for tutoring children after school, a girls club, aerobics exercises, basketball and community meetings.

Originally a community center in Smelterville decades ago, it has moved several times but has remained "the place that poor kids relate to," said Lloyd Williams, who volunteers as interim director after his work as a scrub nurse.

The center has no paid employees. Williams said it had to lay off its part-time janitors for lack of money to pay them.

Jeff Unterreiner, the center's treasurer, said its bank balance is zero. He said that after the center lost its United Way support last year, a task force formed to save the center raised about $3,000.

The United Way wouldn't fund the Civic Center for the current year after it failed to complete the application process on time, said Donald Sherwood, who is on the board of both organizations. "Board members decided it was time to set a precedent," Sherwood said.

The $3,000 went for day-to-day expenses and allowed the center to pay its utility bills and insurance through this month. That money is now gone, Unterreiner said.

Unterreiner said the center owes Union Electric about $2,500 in old bills, but the electric company keeps the power on as long as the center pays its current bills.

The center may not have survived this long "without Union Electric giving us a break," Unterreiner said.

Union Electric isn't the only business letting the Civic Center slide.

Boatman's Bank owns the note on the building. It has allowed the center to miss payments but continues to compound the interest.

In addition, the center owes thousands of dollars in outstanding debts to local businesses for supplies from years ago, Uneterreiner said.

But Unterreiner believes the center can find enough funding to pay its debts and expand its programs if it can survive the next few months.

Williams, who attended the Civic Center when he was a child, hopes to start programs in arts and chess in the future. He believes the center can get the grants it needs.

But first it must raise the funds for next month's bills.