Update by Millard Zimet:

CITY CROSS CHECKS LOCALS – PART II

I’m writing to follow up on the column I wrote last week for The Red Ant about the City’s plan to shut the Aspen Ice Garden. On Tuesday (February 3) I attended a meeting of the Aspen Recreation Center (ARC) Advisory Committee, and I’d like to share with you the information that I learned at that meeting.

As an initial matter, I’d like to thank Recreational and Park Services Department chief Tim Anderson for providing information and answering a lot of questions during that meeting. He is a good guy who has been put in a tough spot. He doesn’t want to close the Ice Garden, or any recreation facility for that matter, as that’s not something that he enjoys doing.

But unfortunately the City’s revenue numbers are way down, and City Manager Steve Barwick has ordered the Recreation Department to find $200,000 of cost savings; all City departments are facing the budget ax and the mandate to cut costs is not confined to the Rec Department. So the Rec Department presented Steve with a variety of choices, and it was Steve who chose the option of shutting down the Ice Garden for the five month period of May through September. Steve’s choice now goes to City Council for approval.

The ARC Advisory Committee, which is a citizens committee that is supposed to consult with the Rec Department regarding operations of both the ARC and the Ice Garden, was not privy to the variety of choices presented to Steve, was not consulted by Steve or Tim about this matter, and only learned about it after the fact. Tim declined to discuss what alternatives were presented to Steve, but it sounded like it was a pretty broad range of options that included reducing the Ice Garden’s hours of operation and reducing City jobs. But instead Steve chose to shut the Ice Garden and preserve City jobs to the extent possible.

Interestingly, it was revealed at the meeting that the Ice Garden is not a financial black hole. On the contrary, it historically has cost less to operate the Ice Garden during the May through September period than the Lewis Ice Arena (about $28,000 less per month) and the Ice Garden has historically taken in more revenue during that time period than does the Lewis Ice Arena (about $6,000 more per month). So one could make the argument that if the City wanted to maximize the cost savings the City would close the Lewis Ice Arena and keep the Ice Garden open. But that alternative is not palatable to the City because the Lewis Ice Arena is part of the ARC, and closing the Lewis Ice Arena would not significantly reduce the ARC’s fixed costs and would negatively impact the visitor experience to the ARC.

Tim acknowledged that a private rink operator might want to try running the Ice Garden, and that, as an alternative to closing the Ice Garden, the City might consider proposals from private operators who evidenced that they were qualified to run the facility in a safe manner. But at this time the City hasn’t put out an “RFP”, and a private operator would need to learn the true cost structure of the facility before a bid could be put together. Tim said that Ice Garden and ARC expenses are to some extent shared, and that the Ice Garden’s electricity use is not billed in a clear manner; so it would be difficult to generate accurate stand-alone operating costs for the Ice Garden.

It was also interesting to learn from Tim that the Ice Garden performs better financially than a variety of other Rec Department facilities and programs. But Steve’s decision to close the Ice Garden was based in part on the concept that ice rink users would still be able to use the Lewis Ice Arena, whereas if other programs and/or facilities were to be closed then those users would be entirely shut out of their activities.

The Rec Department is preparing plans to adjust the Lewis Ice Arena schedule so as to fit in, to the extent practicable, the programs, camps, and activities that would have been held at the Ice Garden during the closure period. I wish them luck stuffing ten pounds of programs into a five pound bag.

I apologize if the tone of this column is wistful, but that’s how I’m feeling at the moment. Aside from the Rec Department staff and the ARC Advisory Committee board members there were only two members of the public at the meeting – me and Toni Kronberg. One of the board members, Sue Smedstad, spoke very eloquently at the end of the meeting about the need to keep this matter in perspective. Other budgets for things that are essential to society, like health and human services, are being slashed. So I feel guilty whining about losing an ice rink, and perhaps I need to pull up my big girl panties and get over it.

Sue is of course correct. And I can see the logic behind Steve’s choice, as I don’t want City employees to lose their jobs. But nonetheless I can’t help but feel that Toni Kronberg was on to something when she said that the City has wanted to shut down the Ice Garden for years and use that land for employee housing. For those of you tuning in late, maintaining the Ice Garden is not at the top of the City’s priority list.

Be that as it may, I’m not quite ready to accept Steve’s decision. Let’s not pretend that the closure of the Ice Garden will be temporary. The economic outlook is bleak, and it is unlikely that the City’s revenues will recover by September. So the same iron logic that compels the City to shut the Ice Garden today will still be around come September. In fact it may take years for the City’s revenue stream to recover to boom time levels. Once they close the Ice Garden it will never reopen and it will be gone forever. I hope they build nice housing there.

And let’s not pretend that this is only about a sheet of ice and that the Lewis Ice Arena is a valid substitute for the Ice Garden. The ARC is a sterile “Anytown USA” type structure that is built on the outskirts of town. By contrast, the Ice Garden is a funky, historic, downtown facility that is a community gathering place; nobody gathers at the ARC, except kids who want to smoke pot in the parking lot.

I’m increasingly becoming convinced that I don’t understand our City’s government. There seems to be an endless supply of funds for planners, clickerfests, COWOPs to nowhere, traffic studies, and community surveys. But when it comes time to actually preserve something that’s part of the community’s past and present the City isn’t interested. Evidently historic preservation is important, so long as the property in question isn’t City property. And while the City is happy to pay for surveys in which residents tell the City they want to preserve Aspen’s small town character, there seems to be little interest in actually listening to those survey results except when the answers suit the City’s agendas.

Next Tuesday, February 10, the City Council will consider the matter and will probably decide to shut the Ice Garden. I’m not going to be there. I’ve got a game to play at the Ice Garden that night, and it is probably one of the last times I’ll be able to enjoy one of the very few non-bogus things still left in this town. And so it goes…

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The author of this column is Millard Zimet, who strongly supports old time hockey.

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