Opinion: Take a stand on the ops center


We applaud the City Council’s push to produce policies that provide consistent responses to recurring situations, such as requests for lower speed limits on residential streets and efforts to hold events with alcohol on city property.

But one obvious policy has slipped through the cracks amid talk of beer and music and fried fish.

Isn’t it time to reinstitute a policy on the rental of the Operations & Service Center?

The City Council put such a policy into effect Oct. 21, 2002. It included the same ban on the consumption of alcohol that now is likely to be applied to all city facilities, along with a reasonable schedule of fees based on type of user and whether the rental was during business hours.

When rentals of the former Lowe’s building proved to be more trouble than they were worth, thanks to guests who didn’t respect the property, the City Council revoked the rental policy.

What’s strange is that the end of the policy did not end the use of the building by outside groups. City Manager Eric Williams retained the discretion to let nonprofit groups borrow the building at no charge, which happens to be the rental rate set under the old policy for nonprofit organizations.

It was this administrative leeway that led to the controversy over Alive After Five and beer sales at the city facility. That’s not a criticism of Williams, or beer for that matter, but of an unnecessary gap in the city’s ever-growing list of policies.

It’s time to decide one way or the other: Either the Operations & Service Center should be opened to any group to rent under a fee schedule that will be profitable to the city, or no group that isn’t part of the municipal government should get to use the building.

We don’t care which way the council goes; we just hope it gets there soon.