Rec center is a want, not a need

The Sandpoint Centre Corporation has proposed building an indoor swimming pool, a water park, meeting rooms and an ice skating arena. Why?

Dr. Pierce, veterinarian, president of SCC, has yet to let us know all the precise details. Has anyone seen the plans? Has anyone competent actually put a cost to this? Dr. Pierce was quoted in this paper that an equivalent of $5 to $11 monthly (annually $60 to $132) is what the public can expect for cost. At $60 per $100,000 assessed value and a median value of $450,000 in Bonner County, that's $270! Fie on Dr. Pierce's arithmetic. Pure poppycock!

Want to swim in an indoor pool? Anybody have any idea what a "water park" is? Like Silverwood maybe? Taxpayers' money should never be used to compete with private entrepreneurs. SWAC and Silverwood pay taxes and are not publicly subsidized.

Meeting rooms? If you can't find 20 meeting rooms in Sandpoint on short notice, you certainly don't know this area.

Hockey arena? Hockey is so popular here that no sport shops in Sandpoint, Coeur d'Alene, nor Spokane carry hockey equipment, just the ice arena in Spokane. The Faggard kid's picture in the Bee showed our hockey rink, it's huge. Plus there are a lot of smaller rinks all over the county, called ponds and lakes. Get the Parks and Rec Department to flood the neighborhood vacant lot, that's how I learned. For a hockey league you need equipment. My niece has two boys in organized hockey, $1,200 each for a six-month season, ($400 just for equipment sans uniform. $800 for coaching, travel, ice time and insurance.)

Not tax the Schweitzer properties? Then someone who can afford a mountain condo skates for free at taxpayer's expense? Absurd! For the woman who claimed "the kids" can't afford a season ski pass, if they got off their backsides and worked up on the mountain in the summer for a week, they'd have the pass. We just gave the kids a skate park, funded not with taxes.

Dr. Pierce and company need to fund and build this as a private enterprise. This idea is an "it-would-be-nice-to-have" proposition, not a need. If SCC's concept is truly economically viable, then Panhandle State Bank will willingly pony up the bucks! Also, save the taxpayers money and cancel the doomed vote.

PETER HERAPER, M.D.

Sandpoint