No guarantees with arts center

We read with chagrin the article in the Jan. 24 issue of The Mirror about the Federal Way Community Center and its inability to bring in sufficient revenue to be self-supporting.

In the article, a council member stated they are “searching for what really is the objective of the facility.” Shouldn’t this have been determined before millions were spent on building it? The city council considered spending $81,000 on a marketing plan for the center. We were glad to see that did not go forward, but amazed that a second vote on it is planned. The center has been publicized enough. The solution seems obvious to us: Reduce the fees charged to use the facility and you’ll get more people using it. Reducing the cost of operating the facility is also an obvious choice, but government seldom looks at this possibility.

Additionally, the city council wants to build a performing arts center, which would cost many more millions. One of the so-called “pros” for this is that money is available from the state to partially fund this project and if we don’t use it, some other city will — let them. (We thought the state was billions in debt!)

There is no guarantee that the proposed arts center will be self-sustaining and could very possibly require future funding for operations and maintenance from the city, just as the community center does now. Here’s a novel thought: Don’t build the arts center and give any money the state and city have available for this purpose back to the taxpayers, who need it more than they need an arts center.

B. and E. Ingbrigtsen, Federal Way

Wrong time to build an arts center

To the comparatively few in Federal Way who are insisting upon going into debt for a Performing Arts Center at this time, may I ask you: Where have you been for crying out loud?!

Do you not see the struggle around you? Can you not feel for the many families who are losing their homes and jobs? Families who must join the food bank lines just to feed and clothe their children? Don’t you realize that most Federal Way residents don’t live on the knobs or the Sound and have large homes with many vacant rooms?

The bulk of our population are renters and apartment dwellers with multiple families and generations piled into one small space. They are the poor who have moved here for cheaper rent, from Seattle’s Capitol Hill and Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhoods. They are the drug dealers — some who haven’t worked a real job in years and couldn’t get one now if they tried. They are those who do not own an automobile that runs for more than a second unless they stole it. They are the immigrants from Mexico, India, Russia, the South Sea Islands and Southeast Asia.

Wake up and look around you! This is Federal Way, America — a melting pot of the masses. Yes, there are a few of you who have done well, and yes, you deserve a performing arts center…in due time. I would like it as well, but not on the back of a country that is struggling to stay alive, for Pete’s sake! First things first.

Some, recently, have said it better than I could: If we cannot support our schools, we cannot afford a Performing Arts Center at this time. Period!

Sheryl Nevers

Federal Way