By Jeff Lipton
Suozzi toured the facility at 270 Lawrence Avenue last Friday, visiting every room in the two-story building and greeting every teacher, program coordinator and student he came across. He then sat down with community center leaders to try to develop creative ways to draw in more money, including renting out rooms in the sprawling center, to help pay bills and fix up the deteriorating building.
I am concerned about the condition of this building, Suozzi said after his tour, explaining that the center needs to be painted and requires a revamped heating, air conditioning and ventilation system, at the very least. And I don't know why the county owns this building, he added.
Suozzi said that the county owns 750 buildings and 2,500 pieces of property. There is no way the county can maintain all the property it has, he said. The county will never be good at taking care of buildings. It's impossible.
No one knows who is in charge of this building, the county executive told administrators at the center. That's why the building is not in good shape. If you were in charge of your own building, you would probably treat it nicer than we could. No one will care as much as you will. There is no way we could do it right...We have to rethink our future relationship.
Suozzi's visit to the center came about 10 days after the approval of his 2003 county budget, which totals $2.8 billion. In his original budget proposal, Suozzi called for a 10 percent reduction in youth services, a cut of $641,047. But following an outcry by youth service administrators, Suozzi and Democratic legislators agreed to restore the youth-service cuts and instead make reductions in other areas of the budget.
As you know, we're in a terrible financial crisis, Suozzi told community center members. We want to eliminate bureaucracy and not eliminate programs.
Community center officials said that if Suozzi's plan went through, it would have cost them about $30,000. They said they didn't know whether they could sustain that large a budgetary hit, and that they might have been forced to shut down many programs.
The county executive said that when he proposed his budget, a $600,000 cut out of a total of $2.2 billion didn't seem significant, but the legislature found other places to cut. He added that he has tried to give priority to health and human service programs, but the police department contract is hampering efforts to provide more money for these programs. He said the average police officer earns $101,000 a year and the union is requesting a $24 million increase over two years.
County Legis. Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) asked Suozzi to visit the community center to see its needs first-hand. The county pays about $400,000 a year to maintain the center, but Suozzi wants to try to run it more efficiently. If the transfer in ownership were completed, the county would continue to provide financial support to the center.
We need a long-term plan for the place, Suozzi said. He asked community center officials to find an architect or an engineer in the community who can volunteer to develop an inventory of what needs to be done to the building. The county will contact KeySpan and other utility companies in an effort to make the building more energy efficient.
Suozzi called the community center a very exciting place and is happy that a variety of programs and services are operating out of one building. But I'm not happy with the way the building looks, he said. A soccer field and new tennis courts were recently built, but Suozzi said he would have preferred that the building be refurbished instead.
Community center officials said they are running on a bare-bones budget, with many administrators taking charge of programs themselves. The center has 155 full and part-time employees. It offers before- and after-school programs, drug-prevention programs, a health clinic, a Head Start program and many other services. The center serves more than 1,000 families a year, and Suozzi suggested charging them about $10 each, which could raise $20,000 a year.
Mitchell Sahn, head of health and human services for the county, said the center will receive an additional $22,000 to help spruce up the building.
Jonathan Davis, the community center's executive director, said the center needs an infusion of funds from the federal government to help repair the building. I'm saying we've got a lot of work to do, he commented. Center officials, he explained, are hampered because the county owns the building.
Davis said that in 1975 the county approached the center's officials and said that it would give them a 50-year lease for a total of $1 if the land were deeded to the county, which would then maintain the center. They supplied the manpower, the supplies and paid the utilities, Davis said. Now, 27 years later, they're telling us, ÔYou take the building.' If [Suozzi] changes the rules, we probably can do more with the building.
Annie Reyes, who operates the Inwood Senior Center out of the community center, said after meeting with Suozzi that she is hopeful. This building has been neglected for a long time, she said.
Roberta Boyhan, the center's board president, said if the county and the center can form a partnership, It's a win-win situation.
