City extends Kids Korner lease for another year

The Kids Korner child care facility that adjoins Turley Park will remain in that spot at least a little longer following discussion this week by the Carbondale City Council, but tensions between city and park leaders over supposed merger talks clearly haven't subsided.

At Tuesday's meeting, city council members informally agreed to an extension of the city's lease of the building to the park district until September 2022, largely under the same terms of the initial lease, signed last fall and set to expire this June.

Before that agreement, the city, which owns the building, and the park district, which operates the Kids Korner program, had operated without even having a formal lease since 2013.

Their final arrangement, reached last following a contentious joint meeting between park and city leaders, granted the park district use of the building for $1 a year. However, it also placed all responsibility for maintenance of the building, an aging former postal facility, on the financially struggling park district, while also allowing the park district to opt out of the lease at any time, for any reason.

The presumption at the time was that the park district would use the time to look at possibly relocating Kids Korner out of the city-owned building - or that stalled talks of a possible merger between the two governmental bodies would reach a breakthrough. Neither has occurred, although the park district's board addressed the first point in a letter sent to the city April 23.

"As you would likely agree, and hopefully understand, COVID 19 has made it difficult to visit other sites; access to the buildings was limited and the childcare staff was unusually busy as they assisted Carbondale Elementary District 95 with remote learning during the 2020-2021 school year," the letter reads in part. "Given these factors, the park district has been unsuccessful in locating an alternative site for the Kids Korner program."

Talks of the possible merger, however, have hovered over nearly every discussion between the city and the park district in recent years. Saddled with debt from the construction of the Super Splash Park and Hickory Ridge Golf Course, and bound by law from being able to collect a larger tax levy, the park district's significant financial challenges have become increasingly public.

Some of this culminated in a 2019 referendum in which voters overwhelmingly said the two should begin talks of a merger. Two years later, however, those talks have egone nowhere, even as the park district has started walking away from lease arrangements it held for decades at other city-owned park sites.

But, as Councilman Lee Fronabarger noted Tuesday, the park district board recently voted not to consider a merger proposal from the city until it has seated a new permanent director. Last week, the park district announced that it has hired Trey Anderson to lead the organization once longtime Executive Director Kathy Renfro retires next month, but that hire is only interim. There was no announced timeline for making a permanent hire.

Fronabarger suggested it all amounted to "kicking the can down the road." Others on the council expressed similar frustrations. "How long are we going to subsidize the park district?" asked Mayor Mike Henry, echoing comments from others. "It just goes on and on and on ... I don't know where the end of this is. They just don't quit."

Some proposed raising the monthly rent cost for Kids Korner to $500 or even $1,000, but there were concerns that a request for such a tribute amount could actually affect service at Kids Korner and jeopardize child care.

"I can't do that," Councilman Jeff Doherty said.

Councilman Adam Loos, an outspoken critic of the park district, suggested the park district's financial collapse is "inevitable," and the recent request was just another delay tactic.

"What they're doing is trying to run out the clock," Loos said.