Roanoke waives recreation center rental fee for upcoming event
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The renters will still be required to pay the $150 security deposit.
The Roanoke City Council waived the standard rental fee for the Roanoke Recreation Center for a faith-based youth event scheduled for July. The council spent a considerable amount of time in Monday’s meeting discussing the decision before a narrow vote of 3-0-2 allowed the motion to pass.
Johnnie Henderson, Barbara Alford and Mayor Adam Melton voted for the measure, while Ouida Delashaw and Tammi Holley abstained. Tim Jacobs was not at the meeting.
It’s not a significant amount of money for the city in the big picture. The rental fee is $150 per day, and everyone who rents the facility is also required to put down a $150 deposit on top of the rental fee. The deposit is returned if the rented facility is left clean and undamaged.
However, the decision was complicated by two factors.
The first is that the event is being organized by Holley’s niece. Holley volunteered this information during the discussion and cited that relationship as the reason that she abstained from the vote.
The second came from Delashaw, who voiced a concern over setting a precedent of waiving the rental fee for use of the city’s facilities. She recalled that the city had denied an earlier request from another organization seeking to waive the rental fee at another facility, although there was some debate among the council whether that recollection was correct.
Her argument was that waiving the fee once will open the floodgates for future organizations or events to receive the same courtesy.
“How do we pick and choose which ones have to pay?” she asked.
The argument for waiving the fee, championed mostly by Henderson and Melton, was that it was an event for the youth, and the city should do what it can to support and encourage such events. The issue of the city’s youth was one that, as Henderson pointed out, came up frequently from citizens during the runup to last year’s municipal election.
Melton pointed out that he had attended a previous event put on by Chosen Faith Outreach – the organization conducting the event in question – and referred to it as “powerful” multiple times.
Chosen Faith Outreach will still be required to put down the standard $150 deposit. Alford voiced her support of the event and said that if the event leaves the recreation center in a mess she would help clean it up herself.
The city already has another request on the table for a rental fee waiver for use of the former National Guard armory for a back-to-school event scheduled for August. The council chose to hold off on a decision on that waiver until hearing from the event’s organizer at the next council meeting scheduled for July 6.
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