Late Friday, Feb. 16, Jonathan Green delivered to Pensacola City Hall the Committee to Save Malcolm Yonge Community Center‘s petition affidavit with the 10 names of city electors needed to start the petition process. The names included former city council members Ann Hill and Sherri Myers. Hill is the contact person for the committee.
The other eight names are Green, Fred Gunther, Gloria Horning, Barbara Mayall, Mary Ward, William Brancati, Daniel Hebb and Michael Raymond Webb.
Thank you “Malcolm Yonge Gym Ten” for your leadership. This issue is not very complicated. When Mayor Hayward was in office, he, Parks Director Cooper and the council recognized that major capital improvements were needed at the gym. Should more have been done sooner? Yes. In 2018, the council borrowed $25 million against future LOST IV Plan revenues for projects deemed urgent but nothing for the Malcolm Yonge Gym (or for the Bay Bluffs Park boardwalk). [Projected LOST IV Plan revenues are now $40.5 million “more” than originally anticipated.] There was $565,000 in the FY 2020 Capital Improvements Plan to fund new windows and doors, renovations to the restrooms, a new gym floor and/or a new HVAC system. The $560,000 was not spent and those dollars plus $150,000 more (a total of $715,000) was budgeted for FY 2021. Five current councilmembers were on the council in 2021 – Brahier, Jones, Moore, Broughton and Wiggins. The gym was discussed during a series of council and CRA meetings in 2021. Both the council and CRA also discussed using Urban Core CRA TIF revenues to fund the gym’s capital improvements. Mr. Cooper told the council that needed gym improvements were more than those already planned for FY 2021 and would cost more than $715,000. He gave the council an updated list with costs. We don’t know if it mentioned the glulam arches. The council should have but did not direct Mayor Robinson to reprioritize budget choices to fully fund the gym’s needed improvements in FY 2022. Instead, Mayor Robinson recommended and the council voted to remove the Malcolm Yonge Gym from the budget and redirect the $715,000 to other projects deemed more important. In 2022, Mayor Robinson proposed a 20-year non-exclusive lease with the openly cash-poor Lighthouse Private Christian Academy that was to shift the burden for making capital improvements at the gym from the City to Lighthouse. The council agreed ignoring that in 2021 Mr. Cooper advised it Lighthouse lacked the financial resources to undertake such a huge, multi-year task. In 2023, Mayor Reeves next had the council approve an amended 20-year lease with Lighthouse. The lease was abruptly terminated and Mayor Reeves later announced that he wanted to demolish the gym and on the cleared land build up to “14 units to 16” and later “30” units of “workforce housing” – probably tiny homes like the “model” tiny home built by his father’s company across the street from the gym in late 2021 – initially claiming that they would house city police officers, city firefighters and teachers but more recently fessing up and using the word “homeless.” In September 2023, Mayor Reeves misled the CRA about the actual condition of the gym. He had withheld from the council, CRA and public a Limited Structural Assessment of the gym done in April. I gave the council a copy of the key part of the assessment. The full extent of the collusion of Mayor Reeves’ executive staff, his CRA staff and the council staff remains a mystery. I have been sending a series of polite fact-filled report-length letters to the council rebutting lies told by Mayor Reeves. Last week Councilman Bare stood up to Mayor Reeves voting NO in a rare moment of city hall moral courage. Salute Bare if you see him. On February 16th, News Radio 92.3 “Team Reeves Cheerleader” Andrew McKay bashed Bare taking him to task for his legislative leadership. McKay asserted that some people opposed to the demolition of the Malcom Yonge Gym are members of “the communist party.” The Communist Party of Pensacola?