photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

The meeting room at the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Administration Office was packed full of people for the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Advisory Board's meeting Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, in response to a proposal that would have established a daily entry fee for the city's recreation facilities. Some people in the room had to stand, and others spilled just outside the room to fill seats in the building's lobby.

After an hour of public comments and more than two hours of discussion among members of the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Advisory Board on Monday, a proposal calling for a daily entrance fee at the city’s recreation centers and Prairie Park Nature Center is still up in the air.

Members of that board voted 4-3 to recommend one change to the department’s fees — a structure for parks and recreation program fees — to the Lawrence City Commission. But a recommendation that would establish entry fees at the city’s recreation centers failed 1-6.

Dozens of people packed into the Lawrence Parks and Recreation Administration Office for the meeting, some spilling outside of the room into the building’s lobby, and many of them expressed vocal opposition to the fee increases that were on the table.

“I’ll just go out on a limb now and say that I actually agree with the members of the public that say we need to take a step back and we need to ask questions of the city manager and perhaps make a recommendation to the city commission about this,” board member Marilyn Hull said ahead of the votes. “We’ve seen enough public outcry tonight and in our email inboxes that I think it would be a mistake and breach of trust to have a quick vote tonight and to go ahead with approving the recommendation.”

As the Journal-World previously reported, the entry fee proposal in part called for a $3 daily entrance fee for adults at the city’s four recreation centers — Sports Pavilion Lawrence, Holcom Park Recreation Center, the East Lawrence Recreation Center and the Lawrence Community Building — and the nature center, with monthly and annual membership options also available. Youths and adults with a low enough income, 185% of the federal poverty level, would qualify for free entry at all those facilities, with the latter group operating under an honor system.

The program fee proposal that advances to the City Commission, meanwhile, would raise parks and recreation program fees across the board, anywhere from 10% for youth and adult sports to as high as 60% for recreation center facility rentals. The parks and recreation department’s proposal aims for those fees to be effective Feb. 1.

The board has been working to draft a recommendation for fee increases since the Lawrence City Commission approved a $1.2 million increase in parks and recreation fees for 2023 as part of its annual budget process. The department first proposed the daily entry fee in December, and at the same time formed a task force to consider that proposal.

During the meeting itself, 17 people commented in opposition to the fee proposal, either in person or via Zoom during a public comment period that lasted more than an hour. But an even larger group expressed their disapproval in advance of the meeting — 57 of the nearly 60 emailed comments about the fee were against the proposal. Many of those comments came from folks who identified themselves as senior citizens on a fixed income.

Comments from the public ranged from questions about the speed of the fee proposal process to concerns that placing a cost on entering recreational facilities could lead more young adults age 19 and older to fill their time with drug use.

Many commenters also referenced a “past promise” that facilities like Sports Pavilion Lawrence would never charge entry fees. It’s unclear when such a promise may have been made, or by who, when looking at the Journal-World’s archives, but Assistant Parks and Recreation Director Mark Hecker told board members it may have originated in statements from “one or two city commissioners” back when Douglas County voters passed a countywide sales tax in 1994. Hecker said he didn’t think free entry to facilities was a proposal that had ever been voted on or documented in such a way, though.

Ultimately, the board separated the two recommendations. Fellow board member John Nalbandian said he disagreed with Hull’s statement about opting against making a recommendation Monday night, but more so because he felt there are value issues related to elements with the first draft of the proposal — such as the past promise commenters mentioned — that need to be decided by a body with “political accountability” like the Lawrence City Commission.

Next, the board plans to put together a letter to send to the commission expressing some of their concerns after hearing the public’s feedback. “Political accountability” and the transparency of the proposal process will be one of the main issues of note in that letter, board members agreed, as will the parks and recreation budget structure as a whole.