INC NEWS - Lakewood YMCA may remain open as renter (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Lakewood Y may remain open as renter
By BriAnne Dopart, Herald-Sun, 31 Oct 2007

The Lakewood YMCA will remain open but the building
housing it will likely be sold, Triangle YMCA
officials confirmed Tuesday. 

While the Durham Advisory Board for the YMCAs won't
meet and vote on a formal recommendation until Nov. 8,
Triangle YMCA spokeswoman Jennifer Nelson said all of
the information gathered by the board's task force
indicates the need to sell the building to a buyer who
will lease back some part of the space to house the
Lakewood YMCA. 

Nelson's statement Tuesday came hours after the
release of a statement on behalf of the Committee to
Save the Lakewood YMCA expressing disappointment in
the Triangle YMCA's recommendations and calling on
officials Mike Ruffin, city council candidate Farad
Ali and Durham Public Schools Athletic Director Larry
McDonald to denounce a lack of transparency the
committee alleges has plagued the process. 

Triangle YMCA officials announced last spring that
they intended to close the Lakewood YMCA, citing
declining membership rates and an annual operating
loss in excess of $400,000. The announcement spawned
public outcry and the formation of the committee
dedicated to "saving" the facility. 

On Sept. 20, officials from the Triangle YMCA, which
oversees all Durham YMCAs and the Durham Advisory
Board, met with members of the Committee to Save the
Lakewood YMCA and assured them they were 99.5 percent
sure the YMCA would stay open. The recommendation
before the advisory board Nov. 8 calls for keeping the
Lakewood YMCA open, but selling the building to a
buyer who would rent space back to the Lakewood Y. 

Chuck Clifton, activist and chairman of the Committee
to Save the Lakewood YMCA, said he is concerned about
who would buy the YMCA building and that members will
not be included in the process of choosing a new
owner. 

Those concerns follow a litany of other issues that
Clifton has raised. 

He sent out a statement Tuesday on behalf of the
Committee to Save the Lakewood YMCA on the Durham
Partners Against Crime message boards and to Durham
officials calling for Durhamites "who want to see kids
and families served by an open YMCA with policies that
are visible to its members rather than hidden and
secret" to write and call members of the Durham
Advisory Board and demand as much. 

Clifton also raised what he termed "significant and
disturbing inconsistencies" between recommendations
made by the Advisory Board's Task Force and a letter
describing those recommendations, which was posted on
a wall at the Lakewood YMCA for members to read. Not
included in the letter posted Oct. 18 were the Task
Force's recommendations to close the facility's pool,
youth locker rooms, gymnastics room and an upstairs
portion of the facility that Clifton says shelters all
of the Lakewood YMCA's youth programs. 

In response to the missive, Nelson told The Herald-Sun
that Triangle YMCA officials have gone above and
beyond to accommodate "Mr. Clifton's concerns" and
said Tuesday's letter caught them off guard. 

Clifton, who became a member of the Lakewood YMCA only
after the Triangle YMCA announced it was considering
closing the facility, fired back that the letter and
his response to the recommendations couldn't have
surprised anyone because he met last week with Tracy
Howe, senior vice president of operations, and Bryan
Huffman, Durham branch director, and asked them to
respond to the committee's recommendation regarding
transparency and the need for revised governance. They
didn't have one, he added. 

Triangle YMCA officials have met with Clifton at least
six times and have invited him to meet on several
other occasions, Nelson said. In addition, the YMCA
has published all the reports they've commissioned
regarding the Lakewood YMCA to the bulletin board at
the Lakewood YMCA and shared all reports from
consultants with the Committee to Save the Lakewood
YMCA, she said. 

"I'm not sure what [Clifton] wanted the decision to
be," said Nelson, "Our responsibility lies with our
members, not just Chuck Clifton. We feel that most
people are going to be satisfied with the
recommendations." 

For their part, Ali and Ruffin deny they've been part
of any effort to keep the fate of the Lakewood YMCA a
secret. Ali said he's committed to transparency and
feels that the board has shown a commitment to
transparency as well. 

Ruffin said that he was the person who first took
issue with the way the fate of the Lakewood YMCA was
being handled at a June meeting during which the
advisory board was scheduled to vote on whether to
close the facility. Ruffin took a stand, he said, and
demanded that a community dialogue be held before any
decision regarding the Lakewood Y was reached. In an
e-mail to all county commissioners, Ruffin took credit
for halting the vote. "I am convinced that had I not
spoken up that day, there would have been a vote taken
to close the facility." 

Clifton disagreed, saying: "They have successfully
given us transparency on a single issue at a single
location. But will my board be there to respond to the
next?" 

Clifton called on Ruffin, Ali and McDonald to stand up
on Nov. 8 "and ask for a revised governance that
encourages members to be a part of the board and
allows them to vote." 

An attempt to reach McDonald late Tuesday was not
successful.