No headline

Congratulations to Kendon Perry and the board of directors of the Litehouse YMCA. I drive by every day and the place is hopping. This is a big win for the people of Bonner County.

Not that long ago, the idea of a taxpayer-paid community center appealed to many, in spite of the unfair burden on Sandpoint residents paying for those outside of the city. Add to that the resolve of a city council member to make this his personal grail and the whole thing was heading downhill fast.

The details of the agreement are apparently not public, but somehow Mr. Perry brought Litehouse into the mix. This is exactly the type of investment that an employee-owned company should make, benefiting current, future and past employees, as well as the rest of the county.

The arrangement also took the owners of SWAC into account, who would have been harmed by a taxpayer-paid boondoggle.

This is a great example of how a free market should operate. There are some other local efforts that could benefit from this approach, if they were willing to wean themselves from tax dollars. The U of I property could be the location of the next great local employer OR it could be another Sandpoint social experiment gone wrong. Beg Kendon to provide some vision for that.

Thanks to Mr. Perry’s leadership, there is a great ending to the YMCA story. I hope that the people that so badly wanted this in the past will take advantage of the opportunities provided at the Y.

CAL OGLE

Sandpoint