Since I have been elected to the office of Northglenn City Council member, I have represented the city at many different levels. Two of those representations are as the liaison to the Northglenn Youth Commission as well at Adams County District 12 Five Star Schools. It has been an extreme pleasure to work with the students involved with the Youth Commission as well as working with the School District in their mission of education.
In this time I personally have come to realize how important it is for us as adults to support our children of all ages. In panel discussions with the Youth Commission member and their friends it has come up time and time again that all they want is a place to be, a place for them just to hang out and spend time.
Someone has asked me the question "why we should listen to students when it comes to deciding about a Recreation Center in November?" My answer to that would be that children are the majority users of our current Recreation Center. Some would say to bad let them go somewhere else. I would say what message does this send to the kids who find our Recreation center the place to spend time. A place where they are supervised, can create new friendships, and just have fun; place where, if they don't drive, they can walk to and most importantly, a place where they can usually afford.
One of the best ways we can safeguard our children from gangs and other bad influences is to provide for them a safe and supervised place to spend their time. It would not be in our best interest as a community to have no place for children to learn to swim, learn to sing, learn to act or learn tai-kwon-do even a place to hang out on a Friday night.
In this day and time many families are single parent families as well as families where both parents must work. The Recreation center and our parks give these families a safe place for their children to be involved and safe.
Those of us, who have lived the majority of our lifetime in Northglenn, need to think back and remember why we decided to move to Northglenn. Was it because it provided a great place to raise our children? Was it because we had swimming pools and recreational programs for them? Good schools? Was it because we were outside the city of Denver, but still close so our drive was shorter? Now ask yourself why you have stayed in Northglenn. Was it a smaller house that you could continue to take care of as you got older? A house paid off? Is it because we offer a great senior organization that has a center just for you?
As I look back never once as a child did I hear my grandparents or elders of my church say "I don't have kids why should I have to pay taxes for schools, or recreation centers?" They willing paid their taxes to insure that those very kids had places to go and things to do. They also willingly spent time with us as children helping us grow and teaching us that getting older was a part of life.
Northglenn is at a pivotal time in its history, we are starting to turn over as a city, and we are beginning to draw in new families with small children. We as a city and as citizens need to give families every reason in the world to move here. A recreation center is one of the reasons they will come. Northglenn is noted for their "outstanding and award winning" children's programs, these opportunities for our children will go away if our recreation center goes away. As a small community we need to work twice as hard as those around us to offer the very best that we can to all of our citizens including our children.