I was reading the latest GE Park District catalog that was left on my porch this weekend, when I ran across a page/ad in there about the Ackerman Complex. It made some mention of the activities that were planned in the building as well as alluding to fees/membership costs. It said something like, "watch for this information to be made public". WTF, I thought I paid my dues for this joint when the tax increase for this joint was passed in the referendum??

You paid to build it...now you can pay to use it.

What don't you understand?

It's not like you need Fan's Nostradamus-quality vision to anticipate use fees. Virtually every park district facility/program has a use fee (e.g. dog park, SARC, platform tennis, pool, etc.).

Fees keep the riff-raff and broke-*** *******s away from our good times.

I say keep 'em as high as we can.

quote:

Originally posted by DTM:
I thought I paid my dues for this joint when the tax increase for this joint was passed in the referendum??

Uhm, DTM, I am pretty sure that your taxes "stayed the same."

I'm so glad we moved and don't have to look at this every day.

quote:

Originally posted by GEmom2:
Uhm, DTM, I am pretty sure that your taxes "stayed the same."

oh man, now you made my blood pressure skyrocket again!

Some curious questions emerge from the park board packet that was published:

1. $25/month for 2010....This year it is $20/month...guess a 25% fee increase is on the table.

2. The revenues for Ackerman include some of these fees...I don't see how they decide which portion of the fees apply to the Ackerman budget and which portion apply to the SARC budget...if someone pays $300/yr then that money is put towards Ackerman, but not SARC, even though they still have access to SARC? interesting math....

3. The staffing seems light. The facility is open 115 hours to the public, the staffing is:

Support staff - 114 hours
Fitness Staff - 31 hours

the other people are just managers and custodians....

so, it appears most of the time there will just be one person at the front desk?

4. Where is the list of fitness equipment? Where is that cost listed?

quote:

Originally posted by ackerman:
FWIW, you didn't vote yes, did you?

Back in 1974, we voted to purchase the land at Ackerman for open space. We would never vote to put buildings on that land.

quote:

Originally posted by DTM:
Some curious questions emerge from the park board packet that was published:

4. Where is the list of fitness equipment? Where is that cost listed?

Once again the GEBB evokes a response at the PD:

"Commissioner Creech asked what the grand total cost was to which Director Atwell responded, $10.5 million. Superintendent Esposito stated that this does not include the Fitness Center equipment. This has not been chosen yet and the Board will vote to approve when ready."

Is anyone else getting e-mail updates from Park Board Commissioner, Melissa Creech? Or, have your read her blog?

Anyone else think the community needs to start going to the board meetings to question some of the decisions about Ackerman? This latest move that enlarged the size of the complex, increasing the cost by over $600,000, so that they can rent that space to the White Sox Academy looks wrong based on the calculations Ms. Creech made. I'm tired of this park district spending so freely of our tax dollars!

the cages and them being run by the white sox academy where in the original plans before the vote on this project took place. The cages are probably the only thing I will look forward to using.

But, what I read makes it sound like the White Sox Academy has exclusive use. Unless you are taking the White Sox Academy programming, you won't get to use them.

What we where told that the batting cages would be in the basement of the building and it would be run by an outside source. I believe the PD figure out it would cost less money to add on to the side of the building for the cages and not dig the basement.

The 600,000 was for the extra steel but was less than the over a million to make a sub level.
I think the issue Creech has is she feels the PD is not charging enough for the space they are going to run. I guess the question is what is fair as far as rent and what kind of profit Bulls sox can make. For instance, I doubt the people who run concessions at the pool pay the total cost of the upkeep of the concession area but the rent needs to be fair so they can make a profit for the responsability of running it.

Amy-This is the Obama era, where taxpayers subsidize for profit companies.

My issue with any government/taxpayer supported program is that the voters decide what we want and how our dollars are spent.

My issue with D41 was and is that they took far more from us than they said they would.

My issue with PD is that I never supported a sports complex at Ackerman and that even if I had, I would want the hired folks as well as the park board to approach the process with a fiscally sound plan. If they can't rent the space for the cost it takes to build and maintain it, they shouldn't build it to begin with....I'm afraid this will become a big drain on the PD budget.

Will the general public's kids ever have a chance to use the batting cages? By virtue of signing up for the PD Baseball program, I would think they would but apparently, only via the White Sox Academy and only after you've paid them a fee (on top of the fee we pay for our kids to play baseball). Meanwhile White Sox Academy collects fees, pays an under-charged amount for the space and all of us taxpayers can't use the space. Doesn't make sense to me!!!!

I realize that in some cases, the government/taxpayer system is far more difficult to manage, monitor, and have a "say" in but our local school and park districts should be able to respond to taxpayers input.

Amy,

The big drain is on our taxes ( already drained when 7000 people voted for the complex) not the PD budget. The fees that will be charged to use the fields and exercise equipment will cover the expensenses I'm sure.

You are right about taxpayers even having to pay more to reap any of the benefits. I think it was $700 for family membership. And if Park District soccor or basketball use the space to makeup for the limited space avilable now, Im sure those fees will go up as well.

Am I reading this right?

---
Commissioner Kinzler asked questions about SARC fitness center. Since is is currently operating at a loss, he was concerned that a large number of its 100 users will move to the new ASC fitness center. A drop in users will negatively impact the revenue there, but costs, such as staffing, will remain constant.
---

Two things leap to mind:

1. There are only 100 users at SARC?
2. They estimate 500 single memberships (not to mention the couple/family ones) at Ackerman??

empire building.

Funny how none of this was brought up when the Ackerman complex was being voted on.

I guess it slipped their minds kind of like when they forget to mention how they were going to need to tear down all those trees.

What are their goals in terms of membership for Ackerman. Someone mentioned that they were expecting 500 single memberships plus a certain number of family memberships.

Problem with Ackerman in terms of getting a large number of memberships is I think its location.

I think Anyone south of Crescent or the Tracks is going to have a hard time making that trip.