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EDITORIALSA COMMUNITY BUILDINGHere’s another in our series of discussions of the most popular projects In the recent Lions' club poll of postwar projects. Wc have looked over the possibilities of a new school building, a library and widening Main street. Now how about a community building?The Lions poll showed this project the most universally popular of all on the list, both among country people and those in town. It Is apparently a proposition which would receive widespread support.Different people, of course, have different ideas of what is meant by a community building. Some think of it as a place to house the mayor's office, the library, the fire department, the light office, etc. Others visualize a place for holding of public meetings. And others think of it primarily as a place of amusement—for basketball games, dances, and the like.In general, however, when people In La Porte City think ol a community building, they have In mind a structure something along the lines of that at Dysart, which combines almost all of the features mentioned above. We suspect that it is that kind of a community building that a great many people would like to sec here.Now for the actual need for such a building. In the first place, our fire department seems well satisfied with its present quarters, which are not pretentious, but seem to serve nicely. We ri,derstand the entire department threatened to resign one time a few years ago when city officials talked of moving the trucks down to quarters in the municipal building on Main street when that was taken over from the Sn-terurban railroad. The department might settle for new quarters in a new building In the right location, but it does not seem to be exactly shouting for any change from Its prcsenl set-up.The city offices, and the municipal utilities offices, arc well taken care of In their present quarters In the municipal building on Main street, although we understand they would not object to moving to a modern building If it were possible. The library will also be housed in the municipal building, where it will have plenty of room and a convenient location. Quarters in another newer building would be nice, bub in no way essential.A place to hold public meetings is another matter. Small committee meetings can be held In the mayor’s office in the municipal building, and arrangements can probably be made for holding some of them In the library when that room is completed. Other groups meet In the Legion building, which can handle a fair-sized crowd, and big meetings are usually held in the school auditorium. All of these places work after a fashion, but It is undeniable that one centrally located building with meeting rooms of several sizes would be rather handy.Holding large banquets in theschool auditorium Is another thingwhich does not work out too well. Aside from the interference with school activities, the kitchen facilities arc unhandy, it being necessary to prepare the food in the home economics rooms of the old building and carry it a halfblock to the auditorium, A community building with kitchens convenient to the meeting hall would be an improvement.Basketball games and other sports can be enjoyed in the present school auditorium, but the gym Is pretty small, the seating capacity inadequate, and the celling beams awkwardly low. A better gymnasium would be welcomed by many.Some school dances are held In the gymnasium, but other dances are held on small floors In the Legion building, the golf club or the lodge halls. There Is no room for large public dances. We don’t know if there is sufficient demand to justify a large dance hall, but a lot of folks think that there is.All In all ,it seems to us that there Is something of a need In town for a building with a big gymnasium which can also be used for public dances, and with rooms for meetings and a kitchen for handling of large public banquets. The building could also house other municipal activities, such as the mayor’s office, utility office, library and fire department, but these features are not absolutely necessary.It would cost quite a bit of money to put up such a building—probably somewhere around $35,000 to $75,000. ! Maybe there will be government money i to help out after the war as there was ; during the depression, but we must not 1 count on it, Uncle Sam will be pretty 1 deeply in debt when the war ends, with i heavy obligations for taking care of veterans, and may not feel like going back to being Santa Claus to the states and cities. If wc put up a community building, there is a very good chance we’ll have to pay for it ourselves.Until the city’s present bonded indebtedness is paid off, there is absolutely no chance of doing that. The city is bonded to within a few thousand dollars of its statutory limit, and it will be a few years before it can take on any large new obligations.The other possibility is erection of the building by the school board, something we discussed a few weeks ago, with the city contracting for the lease of some facilities of the building for an annual fee. This would provide the school with the necessary added facilities, if classrooms are then built in the present gymnasium space, and would meet all needs of a community building here. There would be possibility of conflict between the school board and the council over operation of the building, but the two bodies have been working together in splendid harmony recently and there is no reason why they could not manage to find a satisfactory working arrangement on use of such a building.If the building, on the other hand, is to be primarily a dance and entertainment center, as we know a great many desire, it would seem to us that a better way would be for a local group to form a company to build and operate the building. If there is enough demand for such a building so that it would pay its own way—and there are those who insist it would—it should be a good business proposition for some group to undertake. There is another possibility for handling the problem.There may be still other good ways. We should be glad to hear from any of our readers with suggestions, and to print their letters in the paper. With the demand for a building such as it seems to be, we should be able to find some satisfactory and practical way of getting It.★ Some of our readers are now asking us how long it will be before wc will be able to Increase the size of the paper—a project that will probably be accomplished by printing two eight-page papers a week instead of the present 12-pager, We wish we could give them a definite answer, but right now all wc can say is that the change will be made the minute we can increase our staff to where the work can be handled properly. We are working on that problem right now, and may have something lined up before too long. As it is, we have more work than we can handle right now, even with the boss working nights and Sunday, and we aren’t going to stick our neck out any farther until we have more help. Last week wc had to leave out enough news, already set up, to print two additional pages, simply because we didn't have time to put any extra runs on the press. We’d like a bigger paper just as much as our readers would, but there are limits to what wc can do until we line up more help, So please be patienb—we may be able to announce something before too long.★ Although we have not seen the final report on funds raised for the public library by the Lions benefit show this week, it seems clear that only about half of the funds required to set up the library and operate it until tax money is available have been raised at this time. It seems certain that there will be enough money to build the library room and to purchase some books, but funds for hiring a librarian will be pretty short until some more donations are received. Of course, the Lions club will undoubtedly raise some more money in some other way later in the year, but in the meantime wc know the library board would welcome donations from other individuals and organizations in the town. The library can probably be operated a few hours a week on funds now In sight, but to give anything like complete service for tne ter. months It must operate before It gets tax support, the library should have a few hundred dollars/Of additional help.
Newspaper Details
Progress Review
La Porte City, Iowa, US
Thu, Apr 26, 1945
Page 6
Full Page
Clipped by
Waterloo P.
IA, USA 08 Aug 2024
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