Gale Community Center Now Open; Boys & Girls Club Seeking Home in the 49th Ward

Dear Neighbor,

The Gale Community Center at Howard and Marshfield is now open.  The 18,000-sqaure-foot Chicago Park District facility comes complete with a full-size gym, a fitness center and a large club room, which can be subdivided into two smaller rooms.

The center will be open Monday through Friday from 12 Noon to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  The center will be closed on Sundays.  The Community Center will be staffed and operated exclusively by the Park District. 

The opening is the culmination of a twelve-year effort to bring to our neighborhood a community center that began when I secured a $500,000 commitment from the original developer of the Gateway Centre.  Initially, many in the neighborhood envisioned the future Community Center as a Boys and Girls Club.  When it became apparent that sufficient funds were not available to build and operate the center as a Boys and Girls Club, we turned our attention to the Park District, which agreed to underwrite a portion of the construction cost and operate the building as a Park District field house.    

There were times when it appeared the City and Park District were about to back away from their pledge to build the community center.  But thanks to the efforts of my office and a coalition of community groups, we were able to hold the City and the Park District to their commitment.     

The idea of the Gale Community Center as home to a Boys and Girls Club came full circle when the Cotter Boys and Girls Club mentioned to me last April that they were looking for a new home.  Given that the Community Center had yet to be fully staffed and occupied, and given earlier public support for a Boys and Girls Club in Rogers Park, I believed it was an idea worth exploring.   I raised the idea with Park District Superintendent Tim Mitchell, who expressed strong interest.  

I also shared the proposal with numerous residents and the leading community organizations in the area, nearly all of whom expressed strong support for the idea, including Neighbors for a Healthy Rogers Park, Dev Corp North, Gale Academy Principal Richard Glass, Family Matters Director Kim Delong, State Senator Heather Steans, and my former aldermanic opponent Jim Ginderske.  They all agreed the Boys and Girls Club would bring to our local youth expanded programming and other enrichment activities, which the Park District currently does not provide.  Gale Principal Glass, a Boys and Girls Club alumnus, was so excited about the proposal he offered Gale Academy as a satellite location to the Community Center.  

Under the shared-use proposal, the Park District and the Boys and Girls Club would have jointly operated the Community Center Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.  The Center would have also been open on both Saturdays and Sundays.  Programming for adults, as well as children, would have been offered.

In addition to expanding the Gale Center hours and staffing, the Boys and Girls Club would have brought to Rogers Park some of their renowned character building and leadership programs, such as the Keystone Teen Leadership Club, which takes teens on trips to cities as varied as Atlanta, Orlando, and Washington, D.C.

The Boys and Girls Club also would have brought to Rogers Park mentoring and tutoring programs, such as their partnership with WGN-TV in which school age children and teens are paired with responsible caring adults who commit time each week to meet and work with the young people on school projects and homework assignments.   As a result of these and other programs, nearly 90% of Cotter Boys and Girls Club members graduate from high school, a remarkable fete in a school system with a 50% graduation rate.

Despite the benefits a Boys and Girls Club would bring to the neighborhood, a few vocal people began organizing against the Boys and Girls Club idea even before a formal proposal was presented to the neighborhood.  A few of the skeptics had thoughtful concerns about the proposal, including concerns about the precedent of turning over the Community Center to a private entity.  The supporters of the proposal and I attempted to address those concerns by amending the proposal to ensure the building would continue to be owned by the Park District and staffed by Park District employees. 

However, as Chicago Reader reporter Ben Joravsky noted in his article, "Endless War," most of the opposition to the Boys and Girls Club appeared to be politically motivated.  The opponents said they were not against a Boys and Girls Club in Rogers Park.  Yet, they opposed the only plan with a funding source that made it possible for a Boys and Girls Club to locate here.  

In the end, Park District officials simply did not have the stomach for a fight and decided instead to pursue a significantly scaled down version of the original Boys and Girls Club proposal.  Rather than subsidize a permanent year-round Boys and Girls Club presence in Rogers Park, the Park District now says it may be willing to subsidize a summer program in 2009.

I certainly support any kind of Boys and Girls Club presence in Rogers Park, even a limited summer program.  But I'm extremely disappointed that our children will miss out on all the many benefits and opportunities that a year-round club would bring.

In the coming months, I will redouble my efforts to bring a full-time Boys and Girls Club to the 49th Ward, and I invite everyone, including those who opposed the Boys and Girls Club at the Community Center, to work with me to identify a funding source and location for such a club.

Sincerely,