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City of Gallup pumps up support for funding of local fitness
center
Patrick Mandril works out at the Gallup Fitness Center on Old Zuni Road
on Wednesday afternoon. With the construction of the aquatic center nearing
completion, city officials have decided to keep the fitness center open.
[Photo by Matt Hinshaw/Independent]
By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer
GALLUP — Locals won't be giving up their public fitness
center for the sake of a new swimming pool after all.
A few years ago, before work on Gallup's new $8 million aquatic center
even broke ground, it was a serious suggestion: close or sell off the
fitness center and move the staff over to the new facility. Today, within
two months of the aquatic center's grand opening, the suggestion is all
but dead.
Somewhere along the way, talk of the tradeoff simply fell apart, according
to City Manager Eric Honeyfield.
The idea made as much fiscal sense then as it does today.
The aquatic center wasn't going to come cheap. The city could save tens
of thousands of dollars a year by closing the fitness center even make
back some of its investment by selling it off. It could save even more
on the capital improvements it wouldn't have to pay for and on a new set
of recreation staff it wouldn't have to hire.
The pool still won't come cheap. With $180,000 worth of new employees
to pay for, the city expects the aquatic center to cost $60,000 above
projected revenues to operate annually.
Why hold on?
"(The fitness center) is one of the few facilities that pays its
own way, or even comes close to paying its own way," said Honeyfield.
During the past fiscal year, the center cost $200,000 to run and brought
in $150,000. For the City of Gallup, Honeyfield said, that adds up to
a good investment. Some city operations cover less than half their costs.
There's another reason the city might have wanted to get out of the fitness
center business: it doesn't like to compete with the private sector, taking
potential business away from local entrepreneurs. Honeyfield has used
the argument to help make the case about some of the projects for which
the city has sought private contractors. Yet the city's fitness center
has been competing with a private enterprise Wowie's Gym for years.
"That is a contradiction," Honeyfield said, "I will admit."
But it's also a popular contradiction; demand for the public fitness center
remains strong, he said. Whether it ever goes private will be up to the
City Council.
If there's been little talk these days of making that happen, it may also
be because no one has complained lately.
It's been a few years since Wowie Rosales, the owner of Wowie's Gym, raised
any public objections.
"Back then, I was competing against the city," he said.
While limited parking outside for clients and limited room inside for
equipment were also factors, Rosales said, that competition made him look
for cheaper rent. He moved his gym out of downtown Gallup approximately
two and a half years ago.
Now that's he's found a new home for the gym in Trade Mark Square, and
struck a deal with the city, business is better.
"We had come to an agreement," he said. "So we kind of
work together now."
Under that agreement, Rosales said, city staff refer more serious weight
lifters to Rosales. Rosales, in turn, refers people looking for something
his gym doesn't have like racquetball courts to the city.
"Right now, business is OK," he said.
So Rosales isn't complaining, but he still doesn't believe it's fair he
should be competing with a government-funded operation.
"They're using taxpayer money to keep (the fitness center) going,"
he said.
Unlike the Gallup Fitness Center, Rosales can't tap into the city's coffers
to make up a $50,000 shortfall.
If and when the city does turn any more of its operations over to the
private sector, Honeyfield said, it can probably find better candidates.
Personally, he's grown a little wary of the concept he has mixed feelings
about the job Global Entertainment has done managing day-to-day operations
at Red Rock Park, and has shied away from earlier talk of striking a similar
dear for the El Morro Theater though he's hardly forsaken it.
The new aquatic center, meanwhile, should remain firmly in public hands
for the time being. It's a joint venture between the City of Gallup and
Gallup-McKinley County Schools, which, in exchange for special privileges
to the center, will bear 20 percent of its annual operating costs.
The city will be getting more than a simple pool. The aquatic center will
actually feature two larger pools one designed to handle swimming competitions,
the other for recreation and a smaller pool for a water slide.
Assistant City Manager Larry Binkley expected a grand opening in late
May or early June.
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Thursday
April 6, 2006
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to seek meth education
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targeted for April 25
City of Gallup pumps up support for
funding of local fitness center
Deaths
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