Nonprofit partner eyed for community center
Panel recommends Boys & Girls Club, presents options
BY MELISSA KARSH Staff Writer
An ad hoc committee of the Red Bank Borough Council recommended Monday that the borough partner with a nonprofit on a new community center.

Borough Councilman John P. Curley and the ad hoc committee he heads announced at Monday's council meeting that the Boys and Girls Club of Monmouth County is the not-for-profit they recommend the borough partner with on the proposed community center.

The plan presented to the Borough Council included three parts: a needs assessment portion presented by psychologist and resident Diana Salvador, the main overview presented by community center supporter David Prown and the introduction of the Boys and Girls Club's role presented by the organization's representative, Robert Taylor.

The Boys and Girls Club, based in Asbury Park, collaborated with the borough's summer recreation program earlier this year

"Our children from all backgrounds need a central place to exchange thoughts and ideas stimulating the learning process," said Curley in his introduction. "No child in this community should ever be left alone. I believe it would be fair to say that as a concept the borough of Red Bank could certainly utilize a formal venue for our youth to gather. And a community youth center is conceptually that perfect venue."

Curley, who is the liaison to the Parks and Recreation Committee, added that the recommendation from the ad hoc committee was an official recommendation from the Parks and Recreation Committee.

He also asked council members to take 30 days, which was the amount of time he received to put the report together, to look over the material they received at the meeting and come back with a response. He reiterated that he was not looking for a vote at this time.

Prown, whom Curley said was the chairman of the ad hoc committee, presented three scenarios to the council highlighting the costs of a community center located at the Count Basie Achievement Center building on the corner of Bridge Avenue and Drs. James Parker Boulevard.

"Scenario B involves the borough leasing of this building to the outside agency without having any property management responsibilities. The annual projected cost to the borough in this scenario will be $47,000 a year. All those overhead costs would be absorbed by that agency," said Prown of the scenario recommended by the committee. He said this scenario is the most economical for the borough of Red Bank and would still provide many new services to the children.

Prown added there are a variety of grants available to the borough but a staff needs to be in place before those grants can be applied for or received. He said that in all scenarios, the Red Bank Parks and Recreation Department would be located in the community center continuing with its current role and structure.

"The Boys and Girls Club has a long history of reputably, professionally and successfully serving the needs of America's youth," said Prown, Hillside Place, of the recommendation to council. "They bring out a national fundraising arm and mechanism for all their program staffing which would not cost the Red Bank taxpayers one penny. They bring along time-tested national programming operating under strict guidelines of standard practices."

Boys and Girls Club representative Taylor was on hand to answer council member's questions about his organization.

While some technical questions were asked, Mayor Pasquale Menna and the other council members opted to review the report before coming forward with questions. But he did express the need for the Director of Parks and Recreation Bob Evans to be present at a future meeting for his input.

"I really think that those issues as to what is the [department of] Parks and Recreation going to do, how much are they going to contribute, whether it's going to be three hours or five hours, or whether it's going to be a monetary contribution," Menna said of those issues that still need to be assessed.

"Those are all issues that I think we really have to say after we've reviewed the rest of the information and then we as a body have to sit down with our experts, with our in-house, full-time people and say OK these are the various proposals, makes sense doesn't make sense."

Curley had been challenged to put together the report after a contentious discussion at the Sept. 10 council meeting ensued about the stalled plans for the community center.

These possibilities, he said, include after-school programs, tutoring programs, preschool programs, ESL programs, a voting location, a book drop-off for the library, job training and résumé writing, community policing center, drug/sex education, gang prevention, outreach program and child-care services, to name a few.

In her needs assessment of the borough, Salvador, Bodman Place, said she used data from three community surveys that had been conducted over the past six years. She added that according to those surveys kids are most likely to walk the streets but that they also reported not feeling safe and that they sited gang activity as a problem in the Red Bank community.

"What's so interesting … is that the kids are asking us for help," said Salvadore, who explained that she was in attendance to advocate on behalf of the youth of Red Bank. 'They're asking for more opportunity to have more programming in our town."

"It's more expensive to deal with these kids as adults," she said, "than now as children in terms of prevention."