In a 4-0 vote on Oct. 21, board members of Clallam County Parks and Recreation District 1 — one that oversees the Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center — voted to temporarily close the facility until other funding sources are found.

“Certainly one of the toughest decisions of my life,” SARC board chairman Frank Pickering said. “It’s a community asset. Unfortunately, it has not had the entire support of the voting community.”

In a unanimous vote, Pickering, Sherry Nagel, Jan Richardson and Gil Goodman agreed to close the multi-use building that houses a gymnasium, racquetball courts, weight room, aerobic rooms, pools, sauna and more; board director Melinda Griffith was absent.

Craig Miller, an attorney who represents both SARC and the William Shore Memorial Pool, said the options SARC has to remain open are varied, from collaborations with nonprofits, for-profit businesses, the formation of a metropolitan park district, operations levy to financing and more.

But given the financial situation of SARC, board commissioners had little choice Wednesday night, Miller said.

“The numbers would suggest a court would step in pretty quickly (if it wasn’t closed), not just from an operations view but a legal view,” Miller said.

SARC Executive Director Scott Deschenes said that, including costs of closing the facility — which include monthly payroll and payroll taxes, severance costs for contracted employees, sales tax, utilities, legal fees and other various costs — would leave SARC about $20,000 in debt.

He said SARC’s revenues for October are estimated at about $36,000 or nearly $47,000 down from October 2014.

“We’re basically falling off the table,” Deschenes said. “We just aren’t getting the revenue.”

Not long after, Pickering and board members reluctantly voted to close SARC’s doors.

“I’m not sure my hands are not tied,” Pickering said.

“I don’t see any alternative,” commissioner Gil Goodman added.

Pass refunds on hold

After Oct. 30, SARC passes will be placed in suspension, not cancelled, “until all avenues of reopening have been exhausted,” the board of commissioners said in an online post on Oct. 23.

“In mid-November we should know more about whether a venture with the YMCA could be feasible,” board members wrote. “In addition, the Board of Directors continues to work closely with community leaders on possible funding and partnering solutions.”

Help for swim team

The vote did come with a request for community support to help SARC’s pool remain open for the Sequim High School girls swim team to continue training until its season ends on Nov. 12.

That request was answered earlier this week, when anonymous donations from area residents will allow the team to complete its season.

The SARC Foundation, a nonprofit entity established to accept tax-deducible funds on behalf of SARC, announced Monday it had raised $7,500 over the past week to allow the girls team to continue practicing, Pickering said. The donated funds will help pay for heating the pool and showers, and for running the air handling system, he said.

SHS’s swim practices will continue Monday through Thursday this week and next, Pickering said.

Steve Burke, executive director of the William Shore Memorial Pool in Port Angeles, said on Oct. 21 his facility could accommodate Sequim High School’s girls swim team for the remainder of the 2015 season.

“It’s going to be a very difficult problem if SARC shuts down because we don’t have the room,” Burke said, “(but) we will accommodate the swim team at our facility no matter what happens at SARC, for the short term.”

But SHS swim girls coach Anita Benitez said that scenario wouldn’t work.

“With our budget constraints, we won’t be able to afford (going to Port Angeles),” Benitez said.

YMCA partnership still a possibility

The SARC board, with financial support from Olympic Medical Center, City of Sequim and Clallam County, paid for a survey in part to consider a partnership with the Olympic Peninsula YMCA, which operates facilities in Port Angeles and Port Townsend.

Results of the $36,000 survey still are about two weeks away, said Kyle Cronk, Olympic Peninsula YMCA chief executive officer.

He said that his organization will bring a business plan to SARC commissioners by mid- to late November.

Goodman said he expects the district to need more funding even if a partnership is struck. “Everyone forgets we’ve gone out twice to the community and the public said, ‘No.’ Even if the Y takes over, a levy’s going to have to be pushed to pick up the slack,” Goodman said.

SARC leaders had hoped to keep the facility open through September 2016. But after announcing the closure date and cutting back hours earlier this month, the cash flow dropped off significantly, Deschenes said.

Burke said his organization had a similar experience in 2008 and 2009, when that facility was shut down due to financial hardships.

“As soon as the notice went out, the revenues went through the floor,” Burke said.

Some SARC users had suggested at previous board meetings to raise the fees to keep the facility open, but Burke said that likely wouldn’t help SARC’s situation.

“In my experience, the price becomes so astronomically high, you lose the people who need the pool the most: the youth and senior citizens,” Burke said.

Burke noted that SARC is the only pool he can find in Washington that operates without any subsidies and that SARC user fees manage to pay 80 percent of operating costs.

“I’m at about 58 percent and SARC’s at 80 percent — that blows me out of the water,” Burke said. “Scott’s done a yeoman’s job navigating these waters (but) you’re not going to run a library on overdue fees. I hope the Y can make those numbers work,” Burke said.

While the Olympic Peninsula YMCA is part of a national organization, it is a franchise that pays for operations through user fees. Cronk said his organization does have fundraising projects to help support the annual budget.

“Our board’s No. 1 priority is to see how we can help,” Cronk said.

Closure options

Miller, SARC’s attorney, noted that in the event the facility is seen as no longer viable to operate, that the board could vote to transfer the facility to another municipal district (i.e. the Sequim School District, City of Sequim, Olympic Medical Center, Fire District 3, etc.) with the same legal rules and restrictions as SARC has now, to sell the facility or to dissolve the district.

If the facility were sold — and the fair market value of SARC is in question, Miller noted, considering there has not been a full appraisal of both the facility and land — that money would be used to pay off any remaining debts. Taxpayers in the district boundaries would be on the hook to pay off any other debt, Miller noted.

SARC could file a bankruptcy petition, Miller said, but a court would order the facility be sold and that — as in the case of a sale or dissolution of the district — the district likely would not get fair market value for its assets.

SARC user Ken Phillips suggested the board close only the pool and leave the remaining parts of the facility open. Then, the board could ask voters to approve a pool operations-only levy.

“If the people see what they’re missing, maybe they’ll bring it back,” he said. “If not, the people have spoken.”

Call for new leadership

Paul McHugh, a former SARC board commissioner and facility user, encouraged the current board members at Wednesday’s meeting to step down.

“You’re part of the problem, for better or worse,” McHugh said. “It’s time for new leadership.”

Bill Black, also a former board commissioner and longtime user of SARC, encouraged the same move to establish a new set of leaders.

“What we’re facing tonight is not new; it’s been around since the inception of SARC,” Black said.

Black noted that the intent of SARC was that it would be self-sustaining two to four years after it began operations.

“Obviously that didn’t happen,” he said. “You can look at the finances (in years past) and the numbers keep going down,” Black said. “This has been predictable for years (but the) board has chosen to do nothing.”

SARC board commissioners, however, declined to resign Wednesday.

Pickering said that if current SARC commissioners had resigned, county commissioners would appoint three new members, who would themselves appoint two more to run the junior taxing district.