Lawrence’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Board voted 4-3 to make a stronger statement to the city commission against a proposal to implement fees for residents to use Lawrence’s recreation centers.
The city’s rec centers are currently admission-free. Parks and Rec staff members presented a new proposal Monday for lower fees than what they’d previously proposed, which would’ve charged adult residents $25 per month to use Sports Pavilion Lawrence and the East Lawrence and Holcom Park recreation centers.
The new proposal would instead charge adults $12 per month to have access to use all three of the rec centers. There would be reduced rates available for people who qualify based on their income.
Read more background information about the proposed fees in the articles linked below and at this link.
Luis Ruiz, director of the department, said staff did not yet have an updated graphic to reflect the updated proposal, but the fees that the previous proposal would’ve charged only for use of the East Lawrence and Holcom Park rec centers would also cover Sports Pavilion Lawrence under the updated proposal.
City staff members said they did not have updated graphics to indicate their new proposal, but the updated proposal would include fees of $12 per month for adults to access Sports Pavilion Lawrence and the East Lawrence and Holcom Park recreation centers. (Screenshot)
There was no updated proposal included in the meeting agenda.
Advisory board members last month agreed on sending the commission a statement against the $1.8 million budget cut the Parks, Recreation and Culture department is facing, but that statement did not explicitly mention the board’s opposition to the rec center fees.
The majority of Lawrence city commissioners the following night indicated they’d support charging fees to use rec centers, though they wanted to look at options to keep them free for children.
The advisory board has no budgetary authority and won’t get to make the final call on this issue, but they are appointed to advise the city commission through their perspectives and expertise.
Board Chair Lisa Hallberg said the board is here to “be the voice of the people like us, the people who live here, the people who use these facilities.” She said she wanted the board to give the commission a statement about the fees that was unambiguous.
Board member Marilyn Hull had drafted a statement, which the board reworked a bit on the fly before voting to approve it.
“The Parks, Recreation and Culture Advisory Board recommends that you maintain the policy of keeping indoor recreation centers admission-free for self-directed exercise and recreation,” the statement read.
“While we appreciate staff’s efforts to make access less costly than originally proposed, we continue to believe that fees introduce inequity and barriers. Further, providing proof of low income is a burden, and this program will be difficult and time consuming to implement,” it continued.
Hallberg, Hull and board members Taylor Bussinger and Vicki Collie-Akers voted in favor of making the statement; members Lee Ice, Ruth DeWitt and John Nalbandian voted against the motion.
Another draft of the statement had included that “Free access ensures that all residents, regardless of income, can use safe, healthy spaces year-round. This supports public health, youth development and community connection, while reducing long-term costs,” and that “Revenue targets are unlikely to be met as users leave or turn to private gyms. Taxpayers already support these centers. Free access guarantees that all benefit. Please protect equity, wellness and access. Keep Lawrence’s recreation centers free for all.” It was not entirely clear from the motion whether that additional language would be included in the final statement that will be provided to the Lawrence City Commission via a future meeting agenda.
Ice voted against the motion because he said if the board made that statement, he would want to also discourage increasing charges for other Parks and Rec activities and facilities to compensate. He said he wanted to be assured that youth sports league teams won’t have to pay 10% more, or that admission to the pool wouldn’t increase by $2, for instance.
Nalbandian said he voted against it because “I think it diminishes our credibility with the city commission, because we’ve already said this.”
Board members did not indicate that they would oppose charging spectator fees of people who come to Lawrence for youth sports tournaments. Lawrence city commissioners also spoke in favor of charging spectator fees.
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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August Rudisell/Lawrence Times
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A majority of Lawrence city commissioners on Tuesday said they’d support charging residents fees to use recreation centers.
August Rudisell/Lawrence Times
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Members of the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Advisory Board on Monday said they would not be representing the community if they did not oppose a proposal to charge fees to use the city’s recreation centers.
Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
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Annual memberships to use Lawrence’s recreation centers — currently admission-free — will cost $250 per adult, or $150 per senior or youth, if the Parks and Recreation department’s proposal is approved.
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During a recent panel discussion at the California Journalism Symposium in Monterey, the speakers were asked to explain their origin stories, essentially, how each panelist first got into the news business. It got me thinking about how I first connected to the news so many years ago.
I was just a school kid when my hometown newspaper, The Fresno Bee, ran our baseball score in tiny 6-point type, listing the “batteries”—the pitcher and catcher. It read: “O’Brien and Boren.” Seeing my name in the paper hooked me instantly on the power of the printed word.
The Bee was covering everything, right down to local youth baseball games, which built a sense of place and identity in the community. Everyone from elected officials to youth league catchers could see themselves reflected in the paper. It was a place for a common community conversation.
Today, the landscape of local journalism looks very different. Decades of shrinking advertising revenue, consolidation, layoffs, and the rise of digital platforms have hollowed out many community newsrooms. Entire regions are becoming “news deserts,” where no one is consistently reporting on schools, neighborhoods, or even City Council meetings.
The watchdog role that local papers once played—monitoring power, tracking taxpayer dollars, holding leaders accountable—has weakened as staffs have thinned. Community features that once created connection and pride have disappeared as well.
The result is a less-informed civic life. When no one is regularly covering City Hall, residents know less. When youth sports, school board meetings, community events, and local milestones go unreported, people feel less connected to one another. And when fewer journalists are present to shine light on local issues, problems deepen while going unnoticed.
Communities blur into ghost towns. The shared sense of belonging that once came from seeing your name in the paper, even in 6-point type, slowly disappears.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was more than just my name in print. It was proof of a newsroom deeply rooted in its community. Today, that kind of commitment is harder to sustain, but it remains the clearest path back to relevance, trust, and connection.
Jim Boren is the executive director of the Fresno State Institute for Media and Public Trust, and former executive editor of The Fresno Bee.
Tyla Armendariz, Arbor Moran, Mackenzie Hardesty each won last weekend
Ignite Gymnastics’ Arbor Moran was the state champion on uneven bars at the state competition in Aurora on Dec. 6-7. (Courtesy Liz Herring)
Ignacio’s Ignite Gymnastics showed their gymnasts can compete with any in the state as Ignite returned from Aurora last weekend with three state champions.
Tyla Armendariz, 10, Arbor Moran, 8, and Mackenzie Hardesty, 8, became the latest state champions to come out of Ignite Gymnastics after impressive performances at the Colorado USA Gymnastics Level 2, XCel Bronze and Silver State Competition on Saturday and Sunday at Colorado Gymnastics Institute in Aurora.
“We had an incredible season,” Ignite coach Liz Herring said. “So we had high hopes for state, and it panned out.”
Armendariz was the silver state champion on balance beam in the Junior A Group 4 with a 9.65 score. Armendariz has been competing in gymnastics for the last seven years, and she has been competing with Ignite for the last 1.5 years.
Ignite Gymnastics’ Tyla Armendariz was the state champion on balance beam at the state competition in Aurora on Dec. 6-7. (Courtesy Liz Herring)
It was an especially impressive state championship for Armendariz because her routine was riskier than others. There are a wide range of skills the gymnasts can do, with some skills being easier than others. Some gymnasts in the competition group do easier skills perfectly, but Armendariz did a high-level skill perfectly, according to Herring.
Moran won the silver state championship in uneven bars in the Child Group 4, scoring 9.75. Moran lives in Pagosa Springs, but began her gymnastics journey in Alaska and has been competing with Ignite for about a year.
Herring said it’s not uncommon for young gymnasts to get nervous at the state competitions, and Moran has done a great job progressing in her first two state meets before this one.
Hardesty was the silver state champion on uneven bars in Child Group 2, scoring 9.725. She shared the top step of the podium with another gymnast with the identical score.
“Mackenzie is one of our babies,” Herring said. “I’ve been coaching her since she was 2 years old. She’s very experienced in a lot of ways; it’s so weird because she is young. But this year, every meet she went to, if she knew she had messed up the turn, she never even said a word about it. She just kept smiling.”
Ignite Gymnastics’ Mackenzie Hardesty was the state champion on uneven bars at the state competition in Aurora on Dec. 6-7. (Courtesy Liz Herring)
Ignite had eight XCel Bronze gymnasts and nine XCel Silver gymnasts qualify for the state competition. The difference between the bronze level and the silver level is the skill level of the gymnasts. Bronze is the beginner competition level for gymnastics.
Herring said 17 girls is a pretty high number for how little Ignacio is, compared to the Denver teams that have up to 40 girls per level, according to Herring. The Denver gymnasts also have an advantage because they get to wake up in their own bed and drive to the meet. The Ignite gymnasts have to leave their homes two days in advance to travel up and stay in a hotel.
“I have a kind of different philosophy for our area,” Herring said. “I try to expose them to those upper-level meets, do more things with them and have them travel. So they get more experience doing those things … so when they get to gold, they’re going to start going to places; the gold regional meet last year was in Arkansas, and then the year before that, the platinum regionals were in Dallas.”
Of the 17 gymnasts who qualified, Adeline Crouch, Henley Beck, Emerson Conroy, and Evelyn Gosney also came home as medalists.
St. Anthony Legend Darrick Martin Hosts Annual Books & Basketball Camp
Dating back to his playing days with the Los Angeles Clippers in the late 1990’s, St. Anthony alum Darrick Martin has provided a yearly Books & Basketball Camp for kids in the Long Beach area. What was once the highlight of his offseason continues to be a staple for Martin and his family each summer, […]
Josh Nichols and Marli Salmon were involved in training and gym work at London Colney on Friday, ahead of Arsenal’s first-team match against Wolves this weekend.
Photo via Premier League on Instagram
Arsenal youth duo Josh Nichols and Marli Salmon were both at London Colney on Friday, with the two players pictured doing gym work and then Nichols also snapped taking part in the first-team training session.
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Salmon may also have featured in the training session, as the pictures aren’t comprehensive. At the very least, he was in attendance and working on his fitness.
Photo via Salmon on Instagram
The duo’s involvement is perhaps significant, as Nichols is a right-back and Salmon can play at right-back or centre-back, making his first-team debut on the right on Wednesday.
Arsenal are sweating on the fitness of Jurrien Timber, with Mikel Arteta saying his involvement “depends how he feels” during that training session on Friday. If the Dutch international is out of the Wolves match, perhaps one of Nichols and Salmon could be in line to replace him.
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But we shouldn’t draw any firm conclusions, as it would be the wise thing to do to include Nichols and Salmon even if the expectation was that Timber would be fit. If there’s even a small chance he might be unavailable, the backup plan needs to be in place in advance.
Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images
More than that, Nichols and Salmon have earned their senior training opportunities, and it’s always good to have more bodies to fill out practice matches and so on.
For a proper update on Timber’s fitness, we’ll have to wait for Saturday night’s team news.
BATTLE CREEK — With the youth Battle Creek Central is putting on the court to start this year, the Bearcats know they are going to be better later in the season than they are now.
But, on Friday, Dec. 12, the young Bearcats were plenty good enough already.
The Bearcats started two freshmen and two sophomores in the varsity game and they all looked like they belonged. Battle Creek Central defeated Mattawan 55-52 in a Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference boys high school basketball game at the BCC Fieldhouse.
Jacobs Entertainment has confirmed it will file for a permit for the demolition of the old Bonanza Inn along Fourth Street in downtown Reno.
This is a result of Jacobs’ analysis of the renovation costs of the Inn, to better serve their permitted project, adding youth athletic fields to downtown.
The fields are planned to be the first four in the J Resort’s “Reno Neon Line District” and will accommodate two fields for 7×7 soccer games and two fields for 9×9 games, as well as youth lacrosse.
“These new fields are going to help continue to transform downtown Reno,” said Jonathan Boulware, vice president of Nevada operations for Jacobs Entertainment. “We’re very excited to help bring youth sports to downtown Reno.”
After Jacob analyzed the costs to renovate the Bonanza, they came to the conclusion that it was not a viable path forward, due to rising construction costs. The demolition will allow for a larger scope of construction.
“Travel youth sports is a multi-billion-dollar industry,” Boulware said. “The average youth sports family spends nearly $1,500 a year on hotels and tournaments. These new fields will help us capture some of that revenue here in Reno.”
The timeline for future construction is still to be determined.
