Convention Hall dilemma can be solved by community

May 07, 2008 12:49 am

— Once again, the community has been presented a problem with a city-owned building, and again, residents will be going through a gamut of emotions as the discussion takes place.
Enid Public Schools announced it will not play basketball in the Mark Price Arena/Convention Hall next year. The school is moving its games — as well as volleyball and wrestling — to other venues. The school district was the primary customer of the arena, and city leaders are wanting to study what to do with a non-ADA compliant, aging building that is seeing less and less use each year.
This is a valid discussion to have, but we hope city officials take a lesson from the past and do some things differently when talking about the potential or the opportunities associated with this situation.
The first thing is to have a study and survey done regarding the downtown venues, their use and their potential. There needs to be a communitywide visioning process — perhaps addressed specifically in ward meetings — to find out how the community sees this building and what they would like the whole downtown area to become.
Second, once that visioning process is completed, it would be prudent to come back to the residents with two or three options about how to address these issues. This presentation should include drawings and costs regarding any new buildings or renovations to be done in the area.
After that process, serious communitywide discussion about how to pay for the vision the community has come up with should be discussed.
This can’t be a top-down process from the city commissioners or the city staff. Enid has major issues, and it seems we keep treading water by doing things in a way that just antagonizes people. Enid Public Schools also must be a part of the process and the visioning because those officials need to address their issue of not having facilities for their athletic programs.
The city manager has stated the Convention Hall building will continue to be used for some basketball conference play next year. So, there is time to really take a good look at the situation and get the community involved. It will take effort — both on the city’s part and on the community’s part — to get ideas and input from people. Now is as good a time to start as any.
It’s too early for grand talk from city officials about hotels or sports complexes. Unless there is communitywide buy-in and participation in any renovation or replacement plans for the building, those ideas will be condemned to the pile where many other failed bond issues and community improvement ideas have gone.