City of Ione Pulls Financial Support From Recreation Agency

Thursday, 09 November 2006 02:21

City of Ione Pulls Financial Support From Recreation Agency

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The Amador County Recreation Agency learned yesterday afternoon at their regularly scheduled meeting that the Ione city council has pulled their financial support for the countywide recreation agency out of next year’s budget. The city had voted unanimously to designate approximately $11,000 for ACRA in their budget earlier this year but Tuesday afternoon voted to take it out, 3-2. Ione City Councilman and ACRA Board Member Jerry Sherman stated, "This was out of the blue to me, I did all I could to keep ACRA in our budget, but I was simply out numbered." This will impact the agency by thousands of dollars as every city and the county contributes to the organization on a per citizen basis.

Interestingly, the vote went down lines of who will remain on the Ione City Council with those council members slated to leave their seats in January voting to abandon funding for the county agency. The Recreation Agency’s Board of Directors also was presented with the final copy of their regional recreation plan for Amador County. The plan shows about $2,500,000 going to the city of Plymouth, $940,000 going to Ione including a Howard park expansion, $3,000,000 for Jackson, and $1,000,000 going to Amador City for new parks and park improvements. The plan also shows projects for Pine Grove, River Pines, and the Camanche village.

ACRA Executive Director Tracy Towner Yep stated, "These numbers are flexible and can, and will probably, be shifted slightly as needs requires." Towner Yep stated "The number to pay attention to is the total we amount of dollars we have to spend, $15,130,000. If it was up to me, we would have one hundred million dollars to spend on parks and recreation." The ACRA regional recreation plan will be available throughout the county, including the local county library.