PORT ANGELES — Civic Field could get a new boiler and the Vern Burton Community Center’s gym a new roof, thanks in part to new city utility tax revenue.
Port Angeles City Manager Dan McKeen laid out these two items during a presentation on the preliminary 2014 city budget last week.
The council will hold the last of two public hearings Dec. 3 on the city’s proposed $129 million city budget, containing a $19.1 million general fund.
A City Council vote is scheduled to follow.
The funding proposals, made possible through $389,000 in new city utility tax revenue expected from a rate increase going into effect Jan. 1, call for $50,000 for the new boiler and $50,000 to help pay for the new roof.
The money for the community center roof would be added to $100,000 already set aside in the city’s general fund, according to city figures.
Another $150,000 for the new roof would come from the city’s revenue from lodging tax, paid by the hotels and motels doing businesses within city limits.
Corey Delikat, the city’s parks and recreation director, said the total $300,000 would replace the gym’s dome-shaped roof, which has leaked during rainstorms for years.
Water finding its way through the old roof to the gym floor below often means putting out buckets to collect the water during events, Delikat said.
The leaky roof also forced a youth basketball tournament on Presidents Day weekend to be moved to the Roosevelt Middle School, Delikat said.
The new roof would ideally be made of a thermal plastic and look similar to the doomed roof over the William Shore Memorial Pool, Delikat explained.
The Civic Field boiler, which once provided hot water to the field’s locker room showers, has not worked and has been “red-tagged” since 2007, Delikat said.
“Because of the boiler being red-tagged, [athletes using the field] cannot shower at Civic Field, unless they want cold water,” Delikat said.
The 2014 budget proposal also includes $60,000 for new lighting at Civic Field at Third and Race streets, where high school sports games are played.
This is the first chunk of funding set aside toward the total $355,000 needed to replace the field’s light banks since Port Angeles voters rejected a 2012 bond issue that would have replace the field’s lights, boiler and turf, Delikat said.
“[The $60,000] is a good starting point,” Delikat said.
If the 2014 proposed budget is ultimately approved with these funding items intact, Delikat said his department would be able to purchase a new boiler and likely go out to bid for a new community center roof next year, with the hope of beginning roof replacement in late spring or early summer.
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Reporter Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jschwartz@peninsuladailynews.com.
