Jackson officials vow return to YMCA issue

Jackson school and city leaders say it's time to resume talks about a YMCA. The subject has taken a nearly four-month hiatus while both public bodies were engulfed with other priorities.

"It's been partly my fault," said Mayor Paul Sander.

"We haven't pressed it as hard as we did for a while. We're waiting for results from some of the survey before we moved to the next step."

The last action that was taken were surveys in February. YMCA consultant Bill Ching met with about 30 civic and business leaders to discuss the feasibility of a fund-raising campaign. The YMCA would need $300,000 before it would organize a program.

Ching could not be reached at his office or on his mobile phone on Wednesday, but according to school superintendent Dr. Ron Anderson, the results were at least good enough to take another look at the YMCA.

Sharing the cost"The next thing is to sit down, have some discussion and decide what comes next," he said. "Hopefully soon."

The city and school have been looking into the possibility of sharing the cost of a community center which could be run by the YMCA.

The school has plans to expand its high school campus.

Anderson said the recently unveiled campus plans do not include a community center, but are flexible enough to include one if the city or the county wants to participate and tie into one of the school's facilities.

Some have suggested that the school and city share not only a community center, but a library as well.

Before the round of extensive interviews in February, the city and school hired a firm to study the feasibility of a community center. The study suggested that there is enough interest in memberships to support the operations, but not the building costs, of a facility.

The $300,000 that would be raised by the community for the YMCA would go for operations, not facilities. All that money would be spent in Jackson, Ching said in February.

"There's still a lot of interest in the YMCA and we were impressed with what they had to offer," Sander said. "I know people want recreation and sports, but the intriguing thing about YMCA is that they offer other programs for people who might not be interested in sports. The YMCA would maybe serve a broader base of folks."

bmiller@semissourian.com

243-6635