Youth and family programs
A city with this many kids in it should be measured by what those kids have to do after three o’clock.
The Boys & Girls Club operated out of the Bell Tower Regional Community Center for about thirteen years under a city contract of $120,000 a year. When that contract came up for renewal in 2025, the city and the club did not agree on new terms, and the club ended services in August 2025.
I am not interested in relitigating who said what in those negotiations. I am interested in the hole it left. For a working parent, an after-school program is not a nice-to-have, it is the difference between a manageable Tuesday and an impossible one.
The Bell Tower is not empty. The city runs camps and youth enrichment there through the year, and families use them. What the building no longer has is a full-time provider five afternoons a week. That is a different thing, and it is the thing a working parent needs.
Whatever fills that space should be judged on one thing: how many RSM kids walk through the door on an ordinary weekday. A room that is busy five afternoons a week is worth more than a room that photographs well.
And the politics has to stay out of it. Programs that families depend on should not become a proxy fight.
What I will do
- Get a real after-school option back into the Bell Tower or an equivalent space.
- Back youth sports with fields and scheduling, not just proclamations.
- Partner with the schools our kids already attend instead of building parallel programs.