By Doug Courtney
For over 10 years, the members of the Belle Terre Swim and Racquet Club and the Belle Terre Advisory Committee have worked against the repeated and finally successful attempts of the Flagler County School Board to close the club to memberships.
We have offered to market the facility, bid to run the facility, offered volunteers to offset costs, and pleaded with the YMCA to take over operations. We have asked the city of Palm Coast to move the facility to its Parks and Recreation Department. We have asked Flagler County commissioners to take over the facility operations and to build a new senior center on the grounds.
We have even offered to create an joint agreement similar to the agreement controlling the Carver Centers (or Carver Gym in Bunnell) to disperse cost of operations and capital outlays between three government agencies and a non-profit private organization. Members have even worked to gain grants and donations to keep the facility up and running. Such is the community’s dedication to this facility.
In each and every one of these attempts, the result was a resounding No by the school board or, worst of all, not so much as a response. In my experience each no provided or lack or response given could ultimately be tracked back to a lack of effort, outright failure to accomplish board instructions, or aggressive opposition to any proposals by the district administration.
Because of these actions, or lack thereof, members of the public won’t be able to use the facility they paid taxes to use. The public can’t use it. The board won’t sell it, donate it, lease it, or change it in any way.
As the School Board changed the mission of the Belle Terre club, undermining its viability, it changed the accounting practice for the facility, defining it exclusively as an educational facility instead of the community service facility that it had been since the late 1990s. The implications were dramatic. For the first time Belle Terre could only use memberships as a source of income–not the tens of thousands of dollars in income generated by classes or rentals under the club’s district umbrella, Flagler Technical Institute (the district division that runs the club as well as adult education).
In addition, extra personnel costs were assigned for oversight of the facility even though maintenance and personnel had not changed, and hours of operation had decreased. The result was that a facility that was returning as much as $40,000-plus a year to taxpayers for Belle Terre’s continued use by schools and the public now had a paper loss of $165,000 a year. (See: “Belle Terre Swim Club’s Finances Are Not as Dire as Projected, Club Advocate Says.”)
Even though the pool was rebuilt in 2018 at a cost of over $300,000 and the gym benefited from substantial equipment donations, many of those not using the facility still saw Belle Terre as outdated or wasteful. Our sauna was redone multiple times, and the club’s administration building was one of the only building s left from the founding of Palm Coast in 1999. It was there even before we became a city.
However, even after the School Board ended the membership option earlier this year, it left open a way for citizens to use Belle Terre. This option doesn’t need an outside organization taking over operations. State law requires public school facilities to be available for public use when not used by students and personnel. After all, we paid for it. In this instance the school board allows Belle Terre, when not in use by the schools, to be leased to individuals or groups by the hour through its Use of Facility system.
But it’s not cheap.
It’s $50 to rent the pool for one hour. Any other portion of the facility, such as the gym, must be rented separately for approximately the same amount. To keep the pool and gym open for one hour a day, six days a week, would cost $600 a week or $2,400 a month. It would take 120 members paying $20 a month to reach this amount. The more members that sign up, the more hours we can rent. If enough members or even individuals in the general public pay just $20 a month, we could keep the facility open seven hours a day, six days a week year-round. We don’t have to bid or negotiate, and we can begin as early as July 1.
The Belle Terre Advisory Committee has created a website www.belleterre.fun that anyone, a current member, an aunt, uncle, your favorite dog, or your cousin in Jersey can go to and sign up for a membership. If we get 120 members, we will immediately reserve one hour. If we get 240 members, we will reserve the second hour.
Our hope is to get enough members to establish ourselves and rent the facility for at least four hours a day, six days a week. The plan is to have two hours in the morning and two hours around noon.
So: If you want to keep Belle Terre open, if you want to have somewhere just to swim, if you want to strike back at an injustice, join us. Go to www.belleterre.fun and buy your first membership. We use the secure site PayPal as a merchant account. We assure you all memberships will be held in escrow until used to rent the facility. Any unused memberships will be fully refunded. Let’s keep Belle Terre open to the public. It is our facility, after all.
Doug Courtney is a long-time resident of Palm Coast and member of the Belle Terre Swim and Racquet Club’s advisory committee.
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