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06/15/2021 04:34 PMFollowing an effort to gauge Westbrook residents’ interest in building a community center, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) voted on June 8 to form a committee that will digest the survey and make recommendations to the BOS in August about how to proceed.
Interest in starting a community center in Westbrook to meet the town’s appetite for more recreational offerings began a decade ago. In 2011, the town’s consulting engineering firm Woodard & Curran recommended using basement space in the Westbrook Public Library as an interim center, but that never happened. Interest was reinvigorated a couple years ago when some residents again began to clamor for more space for recreational activities like pickleball.
At the June 8 BOS meeting, the board received a presentation from Taylor Foss, a project manager from Great Blue Research (GBR), as the town once again considered the possibility of creating a community center. GBR was commissioned by the town to conduct a survey of Westbrook residents to gauge interest in a community center between March and April.
The results of that survey were presented to the BOS at the June 8 meeting.
Foss said that 714 people completed the survey, “which is several hundred more than we were expecting,” he added. Overall, a majority of people surveyed said they wanted a community center. The survey results indicated that center use was closely tied to age, with respondents age 65 or older most eager to see a center.
“These would probably be the majority of the patronage,” said Foss.
Parents with children also expressed a desire for a center, and those who had more children in particular were in favor of it.
Respondents said they wanted the community center for fitness uses such as basketball courts or pickleball courts, but also for space to have meetings and summer activities, too.
Westbrook Senior Center director Courtney Burks noted that the extra space could be helpful for added programming for which there isn’t space for now and that, in her opinion, that would not detract visitors from other places in town.
“It’s an opportunity to offer different things,” Burks said.
While the survey results showed a majority in support for a community center, 64 percent of people said that they were opposed to raising taxes to pay for the center. Foss said that the Westbrook results actually indicated higher support than some other towns, but acknowledged there was still details that needed to be ironed out.
After the meeting, the BOS unanimously voted to form a committee composed of town staffers to dig more into the survey results and recommend next steps for the BOS. First Selectman Noel Bishop stressed that no decisions would be made by the committee, just recommendations.
Bishop said that Paul Winch, the chair of the Westbrook Foundation, will also serve on the committee. Bishop said that while there is still a long way to go and many decisions to be made, if the town does decide to go forward with building a community center, the foundation had indicated it would make a significant contribution.
The committee will examine aspects such as how to pay for the center, potential locations, the ongoing cost or maintenance a center would need, and possible offerings. The committee will be charged to deliver its recommendations to the BOS in two months.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done between now and then,” Bishop said.