MOUNTAIN HOME - Tensions ran high Thursday night in Elmore County as the recreation district announced they're cancelling their contract for a multi-million dollar recreation center.
The Western Elmore County Recreation District held a last-minute meeting in Mountain Home to discuss the status of that facility. The 15-year-old WECRD is under new leadership as of a couple weeks ago. Those two new directors, Art Nelson and Judy Mayne, ran on the platform of cancelling the current contract to build a $4.2 million recreation center.
"With no further debate, I move that we cancel the contract with Kreizenbeck Constructors," WECRD President Art Nelson announced a couple minutes into the meeting.
"I second that motion," Vice President Judy Mayne added.
Mayne told residents they simply don't have the money to build the building, or have anything left over to put final touches on it or run programs out of it. Plans for a new rec center have been in the works for over a decade and the recreation district has been collecting taxes for the past several years to build it.
"They were gonna have enough money," Mountain Home resident Richard Foster told KTVB.
But the recreation district says they only have $3.7 million left in the bank right now to pay for the facility and they need about $4.2 million.
"Build the building and make your adjustments as things go along," resident Vivian Meyer told the board. "Haven't you ever heard of compromise?"
When the floor was opened up to public comment, people immediately took to the microphone to express their frustrations.
"I think you're making a mistake here - a bad one," one local business owner said at the podium.
Elmore County residents said they are mainly concerned with the fact that this contract cancellation is going to cost taxpayers their hard-earned money.
"Thanks for wasting $1 million of our money," resident Frank Marsh told the board of directors.
Site work is already done on the 20-acre lot on South 18th East Street in Mountain Home.
"It will cost money," Nelson told KTVB. "A part of that is into site work which we can hopeully use for whatever we can do over there."
He says they want to build a more affordable, scaled-back recreation center for Elmore County. He also wants to improve programs and facilities already in place.
"That's taxpayer money going down the tubes and we're going to have a cleared off lot down there," Foster said.
But at the end of the day, residents have been waiting a long time for a nice, new facility.
"They don't want their hard-earned money just thrown away," one resident told the board.
Many people are extremely concerned with the fact that the Nelson and Mayne - the recreation district's only directors - openly supported a petition called "Stop the Madness". That petition is looking to get a vote on the ballot that would decide the future of the WECRD.
Nelson says everyone knew the duo was running on the platform that they were going to cancel plans for the building, and it was clear by the outcome of the election that the majority of the community agreed with them.
