FAIRMONT– On Wednesday the Community Center Advisory Board met with two representatives from Tegra who suggested the city put out a post-Covid survey to seek updated input from the public regarding what it would like to see in a community center.

Tegra is the city’s owner representative for the proposed Fairmont Area Community Center. The contract was approved by the Fairmont City Council at its Jan. 24 meeting. Dick Strassburg and Julie Dotzenrod of Tegra shared a tentative work schedule which includes sending out a request for proposal for architects.

“It generally takes four weeks by the time we get it approved,” Strassburg said.

He shared that Covid has caused a re-set for people and have changed how they view venues like a community center.

“I don’t know how it’s changed it in this community but we think you should do some kind of public engagement to double-check what you guys came up with, which is now five years ago,” Strassburg said, referring to the last time a previous community center board worked on the project.

Strassburg suggested the board verify the information it had previously received from the community in a post-Covid survey.

“It’s a post-Covid survey, what do people see, what do people want. Let’s get that big picture going again,” City Administrator Cathy Reynolds said.

She pointed out the dynamic has changed as it’s no longer just a community center committee, but the city is also engaged in it as well and decisions need to be made so community input is needed.

Some of the board members were reluctant to seek input again, especially since several families and businesses have pledged large amounts of money for the project.

Board member Mike Edman said, “I would be super reluctant to have a public meeting where we’re advertising that we’re going back to the drawing board.”

Strassburg said in his career, he’s run into instances where he’s figured out what doesn’t work and Fairmont’s Dec. 2018 public meeting at the Fairmont Opera House was one of them.

“We hadn’t ever done a meeting like that and we’re never doing it again. The whole room turned negative and it was a bad meeting,” he said.

Rather, he said an opportunity should be provided for the public to again say what they’d like to see regarding the community center.

Board member Randy Lubenow said he thinks he knows the pulse of the community and that people want to know how the community center will effect their property taxes and how it will be different than what Fairmont has had in the past.

“We’re never going to please everybody but I think there’s really three groups. One group that’s really for it, one group that’s really against it and one group that thought in 2016 when they voted for the sales tax that it was a done deal,” Lubenow said.

Several board members still expressed hesitancy to put out another survey. Strassburg said the goal would be to reconfirm where everyone is at after Covid.

Edman asked what kind of questions would solicit the answers they’re looking for which would also make the community feel like it has an opportunity to share what it wants.

Strassburg talked about some big decisions that need to be made, one of them being about pools.

“It’s not just about a pool. It’s about two pools. It’s the kiddie pool with a slide and that’s the temperature of a bathtub, and then a competition, lap pool. That’s a whole different demographic,” Strassburg said.

He said a question about what kind of pool people want to see, or would use, would be useful to have on the survey.

Lubenow asked if a swim team would ever be a possibility at the high school.

Board member Mat Mahoney said, “If we get a pool, I guarantee you within five years of that facility we would have a swim team.”

Board member Brandon Edmundson said they previously hadn’t looked at a competitive swimming pool other than as an add-on.

“I think part of this is getting feedback and as we’re hitting the design phase, we can piece everything and show that we’re taking input into consideration,” Reynolds said.

The board talked about pool specifics for awhile longer before switching to the topic of ice. Currently, ice is available from about mid-October to mid-March. The board toyed with asking the community what its ice use would be the other months of the year.

Strassburg asked the board’s hockey association liaison members, Lisa Kuhl and Kyle Gustfason, some specific questions about how many families are in the hockey association and how much they pay.

Edmundson pointed out that all of the data they’re gathering is for phasing.

“As we get the data and look at it and see what the pieces of the puzzle cost, we’re always going to be looking at if we can operationalize those pieces,” Reynolds said.

Edman said he would work on putting together a list of questions for the survey. The survey will likely be available both online and in paper form so that it can reach a wider range of community members.

Strassburg said it would be nice to have the feedback in before they interview companies that send in an RFP for architects. He encouraged the board to get the survey out in the next few weeks.

“This is real now. This is going to happen one way or the other or you wouldn’t have hired us to get in here. Now we need to figure out what it is we’re going to build. We don’t want to build it and not have people use it,” Strassburg said.