Published: July 16, 2008 07:30 am            

School board supports Y

Readers Views

Dear Editor:

We, the undersigned members of the Somerset Independent School Board, would like to encourage our city councilors and county magistrates to support a city/county alliance in the takeover of the local YMCA.

The Y’s financial difficulties have been outlined to the public, and in fact, the possibility of closure of the facility has even been mentioned. We feel this would be a terrific loss for not only our school system, but for the entire county.

Our system uses the Y on a regular basis as the venue for our SKIPS program, an after-school initiative aimed at keeping young people positively engaged in physical activity. Our school’s swim team also uses the pool at the facility regularly, and in fact, would have to discontinue the swim program without the availability of the Y pool.

Our system also takes classes of students to the Y to introduce them to forms of physical education such as yoga, spinning and Pilates that they may not have exposure to elsewhere.

With Kentucky’s childhood obesity rate ranking near the top in the U.S., the vital importance of physical activity and ongoing education in this area cannot be overemphasized.

The loss of this beautiful facility would be a giant step backward for all of Pulaski County citizens, and not just for the ones who use it regularly.

Businesses looking to locate in new areas consider the availability of such facilities; the knowledge that our county had one and let it fail would definitely not be a positive in the recruitment of new industry to the area.

In short, we feel that the existence of the YMCA is a tremendous positive not only for our school system but for the county as a whole.

We trust that those in decision-making positions will take our support into consideration when voting on this critical matter.



Very truly your,

Elaine Wilson

Gretchen Cole

Sherry Brown

Hobart Withers

Jeff Adams

Somerset Independent

Schools Board members

Somerset, Ky.

        

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