MUKILTEO — The war over what to do with Rosehill Community Center rages on.
One side is crying foul over the latest in a long string of incidents that have pitted the City Council against the center’s users for almost five years.
The city has informed the community center’s dancers, violinists, basketball players and other users that it is not only eliminating the only position the city used to staff the center, but also is closing its management office.
Having attended multiple budget hearings the council held in recent weeks, users of Rosehill knew the center’s management position was being eliminated, but they had hoped to keep the office open, possibly with volunteers or someone they would pay.
"We wanted to keep it open and try to build up" the center’s use, said Kathy Wisbeck, president of Friends of the Community Center, the organization spearheading the effort to keep the center open. "I think we could do a pretty good job of bringing (new tenants) in."
Instead, the office is being closed and the space will be available for rent Feb. 1.
Wisbeck said closing the office is a clear sign that the city wants "Rosehill to go away" and that it is pushing harder toward eventual closure.
Mayor Don Doran said the city is not trying to force the center to shut down, adding that the $42,000 the city will save by eliminating the office and manager’s positions was one of many tough cuts the council had to make to cover a $443,000 budget shortfall.
"Although they’re interpreting this as us being mean to them, we’re really only trying to be fair to everyone," Doran said.
If the city closed the community center, it would have no ability to bring in further revenue, he said. The logic of the opponents "is beyond my ability to figure out."
Doran said the city will still have a large presence at the center, and that help will only be a phone call away.
Problems between the two sides started in 1998 when the council voted to tear down the old school building so a new city hall could be built. Later, the plan was amended to build a city hall and community center at the site.
Then last year, the City Council raised the rents for community center tenants by about 10 percent, a move designed to help cover a 2003 budget shortfall.
After that, the city learned that it had lost a lawsuit over a requirement by the Mukilteo School District that the land be used as a community center. The ruling meant the city must build a community center before or at the same time it builds a city hall on the Rosehill property.
More recently, the council proposed raising tenant rents 50 percent to more than 100 percent to help cover the 2004 budget shortfall. Instead it raised them by 20 percent after Rosehill tenants testified that higher increases would force them out.
Doran said there’s no way the city would let someone else run the facility.
"We have no intention of turning the building over to the Friends of the Community Center," he said. "We are liable for the functions in that building, and we’re going to continue to own and operate it."
Reporter Lukas Velush:
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