The All-City Sports Facility continues to be a point of contention for two School Board members who feel that they were not properly consulted in the design phase of the facility. Board members Melissa Luby and Sally Ann Baynard feel that Citizens for an All-City Sports Facility, the private group pushing to build the facility, has neglected to work with the School Board.
“How could a group meet in private to plan the use of several million dollars of public money?” Luby asked. “Why didn’t they ask a current School Board member to the meetings?”
At the Oct. 20 School Board meeting, Assistant City Manager Mark Jinks made the city’s first presentation to the School Board about the facility. He said that high school sports would have a priority at the complex. He also said that a private group plans to raise about half the money needed to build the facility, with the city contributing about $5 million.
After the presentation, Baynard thanked Jinks — whom she called the city’s “most diplomatic and knowledgeable emissary.” But she and Luby continued to express frustration that the School Board had only now been consulted.
“I must say that I’m a bit surprised that you’re just now coming to the School Board for an endorsement,” Luby said.
Former Mayor Kerry Donley, now the athletic director of T.C. Williams High School, was at the meeting to answer questions, but board members did not ask him any.
LAST WEEK’S MEETING of the City Council brought new action on the facility, approving the current concept plan for the $11.7 million project. The 6-1 vote authorized staff to proceed with a request for proposals for preliminary design services, allocating $300,000 from the Capital Improvement Program for the project's preliminary design services. The City Council also requested that the Alexandria Capital Development Foundation proceed with developing a fund-raising plan to raise $5 million in private funds.
“You know you’re not going to have a friend left in town after you pick every pocket,” Vice Mayor Del Pepper told Alexandria Capital Development Foundation chairman David Speck, a former city councilman.
“I’ve never thought of raising funds for a capital project as pocket picking, but I hope that we still have friends in the end,” Speck said. “We think that raising $5 million for this project will take about a year.”
Councilwoman Joyce Woodson expressed concern over City Manager Jim Hartmann’s memorandum about the facility. She said she was particularly concerned about Hartmann’s stipulation that “this fund raising will need to be substantially under way with significant commitments in hand prior to the city going to bid for construction of the All-City Sports Facility project.”
“I’m real uncomfortable with this language. It’s very vague,” Woodson said. “It doesn’t really spell out what ‘significant’ is.”
Woodson said that she was concerned that the city might end up kicking in money that should have been raised by the foundation. Councilman Andrew Macdonald also questioned what would happen if the private foundation couldn’t raise $5 million. In the end, he voted against the docket item, providing the lone dissenting vote against the All City Sports Facility.
“I’m not convinced that the design reflects the broad recreational needs of the community,” Macdonald said, adding that the facility needed more assessment. “I wonder if this is the best way to spend our money.”