On Monday night – the Bowie City Council voted to move forward with the construction of an indoor sports facility.
The Bowie City Staff recommendation was to construct 3 basketball courts and 1 rink, but council members opted with two sheets of ice – one NHL sized, one Olympic-sized – and no courts, to be built at the Church Road location, with a projected cost of $24.4 million.
If that price tag doesn’t concern you, it should: the City of Bowie is facing a 2 million dollar budget shortfall, and the 2017 projection is that we will need to raise taxes twice by 2020 to cover current spending levels.
I grew up in Bowie – I played sports with Bowie Boys and Girls Club for over a decade. Sports are an important part of childhood: teamwork, self-discipline and communication are all skills I learned on the field. But the taxpayers of Bowie cannot be forced to foot such a hefty bill.
The City of Bowie loses between $200,000 and $300,000 a year at the current facility: about 20 cents on the dollar. All this while the nearest neighboring facility, Piney Orchard Ice Rink, charges 30% more for admission.
The current facility is in bad shape, no is denying that. But in these uncertain economic times, spending 24.4 million dollars – 1/3 of our yearly budget - on an ice rink is naïve, at best. Especially when we have not seen any concrete evidence of the financial benefits such a facility may bring.
This is the biggest financial undertaking that the City of Bowie has ever considered. It is a public project, paid for by taxpayer dollars – and therefor we should hold the opinions of Bowie residents above visitors who patronize our community’s taxpayer funded facilities.
While I feel compassion for the skating and sports communities, their situation does not warrant spending 24.4 million dollars of taxpayer money on a project that is narrowly tailored to suite limited needs, without first allowing for a referendum.
The last time the City of Bowie held a referendum for a recreational facility the debate was over a public swimming pool – an amenity that would better serve a greater percentage of Bowie’s population. When voters were asked if they would like to pay for a public pool and its upkeep, 60% said no.
The City Council fears that were this to go referendum, Bowie residents would opt not to spend any money – but that decision is their right.
The magnitude of this issue deserves a ballot question – if it truly is the wish of the majority of Bowie Residents to have this facility built, then so be it, but let the PEOPLE decide how their money is spent.