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Community Center Committee Close to Creation

At a meeting on Nov. 7, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) discussed naming a community center committee and what its charge would be. The BOS will take up the topic again at its December meeting.

At the Nov. 7 meeting, Selectman Chet Bialicki presented several recommendations for a proposed community center committee. Bialicki said that the committee should be comprised of an architect, designer, contractor/construction manager, someone familiar with finances and grants, a current park and rec member, the park and rec director as an ex-officio member, and an optional BOS member also as ex-officio.

Under the proposed guidelines, the committee would consider possible locations around town, timelines, relevant codes and ordinances, the layout and design of the center, the needs of the park and recreation department relative to the center, and the potential cost to build and the cost to operate the center.

John Palermo, the emergency management director, asked that the committee also consider additional costs of perhaps using the center as an emergency evacuation center in the case of a disaster like a hurricane.

The board agreed to revisit the topic at its meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 13 at 5:30 p.m.

Interest in starting a community center in Westbrook to meet the town’s appetite for more recreational offerings began a decade ago. In 2011, the town’s consulting engineering firm Woodard & Curran recommended using basement space in the Westbrook Public Library as an interim center, but that never happened. Interest was reinvigorated a couple of years ago when some residents again began to clamor for more space for recreational activities like pickleball.

In 2021, An online survey for Westbrook residents designed to gauge interest in a town community center received more than 280 responses in less than 24 hours of being live. In total, 714 people filled out the survey with a majority of people in favor of the town building one.

Efforts to continue the project continued in 2022. In the town budget that voters approved in May, $125,000 was included in the capital budget for design and engineering so that a possible new community center can be presented to residents.