Mount Clemens city officials hope to have a new outdoor playground constructed this summer at Cairns Community Center on the city’s northeast side.
The only problem is, when the city advertised for bids for the work, no contractors responded. Officials reviewed the bid request, resubmitted it, and are hopeful the playground will be built using $150,000 in Community Development Block Grant funds.
“We can’t say when it will get started because we haven’t received responses yet from our second try,” City Manager Gregg Shipman said Monday. “But we are optimistic.”
Shipman’s comments followed a community meeting over the future of the city-owned center. About 50 people including residents, city officials, contractors and even former residents attended the session.
The meeting was called in response to confusion over the fate of Cairns Community Center and its programs following the ouster of its previous director. The session was meant to address rumors of a closure or sale of Cairns Center — both of which officials say are untrue — as well as to provide general information about future activities.
“Cairns is not closing,” Mayor Laura Kropp told the crowd. “It is not in danger of closing.”
Officials provided an abbreviated history of the center and a summary about its financial struggles over the past few years.
Most recently, Mount Clemens terminated a leasing contract arrangement with TCB Mentoring and its director, Thomas Barnes, and took back the keys from him. Officials said his inability to acquire sufficient funding for his programs was a key reason for termination.
Officials stressed Barnes was not accused of any wrongdoing in regard to Cairns. As a nonprofit organization, TCB was simply unable to come up with consistent revenue flow to pay for the costs of running the center, located at Clemens and Orchard streets.
Mount Clemens typically has a hard time financing recreation programs as roughly 50% of the city’s tax base is on non-taxable property.
Since Barnes’ departure, Cairns Center is under the direction of the Department of Public Works director and Parks & Recreation coordinator. The coordinator spends a few days there while focusing on the city’s two other recreation centers: The Mount Clemens Community Center on Groesbeck Highway and Wilson Gymnasium on South Wilson Boulevard.
Cairns Community Center still provides a variety of recreation, senior fitness, workshops and educational classes. But officials are always looking for other instructors to host programs.
City looks for grants, sponsorships
City leaders say they continue to explore partnerships and sponsorships to provide programs.
In addition to the playground, Mayor Kropp said city workers are also trying to land a grant to redo the center’s exterior field after being turned down before, as well as looking for financing a commercial kitchen to bolster the center rentals.
Karl Hey, who heads a program called Hey Coach, was impressed by Monday’s meeting turnout.
“This is amazing,” Hey said after the meeting. “It was wonderful to see all of these people come out. It means the community cares about Cairns and they are willing to come out and support it.”
Hey Coach — where Hey trains coaches not only in sports but how to work with children, stressing social and emotional methods of communicating with youngsters — is part of a public-private, cost-sharing partnership to offer recreation programs with Mount Clemens.
According to Hey, the partnership is called Breaking Barriers and consists of Hey Coach, LK St. Clair Soccer, and Families Matter Sports and Activities working together to provide programming
“With our Breaking Barriers program, the things that helped us not only make it sustainable but affordable was that we were really heavy with grants, sponsorships and community support,” he said.
“Since it worked with our programming, I feel that is what kind of effort it will take to help us support Cairns Center,” Hey said.
More information is available at mountclemensrecreation.org.
