Bay Oaks future to be discussed
Town officials have a lot of ideas for Bay Oaks Recreation Center when they take over the park soon from the county.
What’s going to happen to the recreation center? What’s going to happen at the pool? Will fees go up, down or stay the same?
Town manager Scott Janke and finance director Evelyn Wicks will tell us all about their ideas at the March 10th meeting of the Fort Myers Beach Civic Association.
Wicks is working on plan to bring college athletic teams to Bay Oaks for mini-training camps. Already, Notre Dame and William and Mary swim teams have practiced at our pool.
“We’re trying to market it to college teams for retreats for a few days at a time, teams all over the east coast. They could be short training camps, bring people to the island,” she said. “There are 300 teams we could market to. We don’t know we can get them but we are looking at it. We need to use every bit of the property to our advantage. Our goal is to at least break even.”
Wicks also said thinks the town can operate the center cheaper than the county has. It currently costs about $600,000 a year to operate, with the county and town sharing the costs equally.
Wicks thinks it’s time to increase fees for non-residents, people from off island who use the center and pool.
“We would change the annual fee for non-residents and we wouldn’t have to raise frees for residents,” she said. “People who own property here pay for it in their taxes. “
The meeting is Tuesday, March 10 at 7 p.m. at St. Peter Lutheran Church on Estero Boulevard.
Come early and eat some goodies donated by Erickson’s Drying Systems, our business sponsor for March.
The public is invited. Bay Oaks recreation center members especially won’t want to miss this one.