Gymnastics boosters continue their push to have County Board members rescind proposed cuts to programming and the closure of the Barcroft Sports & Fitness Center.
Much of the lobbying is now coming from youths who would be impacted by the closure.
Ten-year-old Emilia Lopez is a member of the Arlington Aerials, the county’s program for female gymnasts. The program’s staff and participants represent a vital component of her life, Lopez told Board members at their March 26 budget hearing.
“They are a support network that is always there for me,” she said.
“They push me to do my best to train and to test my limits,” Lopez added. “But they also show what it means to respect and support each other, to compete in a healthy way.”
The county government runs the Aerials program, as well as the Arlington Tigers gymnastics program for boys and adapted-gymnastics programs for those with disabilities.
The programs run a deficit approaching $1 million annually, county officials said when proposing to eliminate the youth programs and redesign the adapted program.
Another member of the Aerials squad, Eleanor Kravitz, was critical of Board Chair Matt de Ferranti — who reportedly told gymnastics supporters that his parents had traveled 45 minutes to take him to soccer practice as a child, and he didn’t see why parents of gymnasts couldn’t make the same arrangements.
“How wonderful that the Board chair’s family had those resources,” she said. “To think that everyone else’s does is just flat-out ignorant. Not every family this gym serves has the ability.”
She went on:
“Don’t let your assumptions of privilege blind you from the reality of what this budget does. To imply that we can simply pivot shows complete detachment [from those] you are elected to represent.”
De Ferranti, who is seeking re-election this year, opted against rebutting the comments. “Point taken,” he said after Kravitz concluded.
The gymnastics proposal and a plan to close Cherrydale Library are the most heavily debated recommendations in County Manager Mark Schwartz’s proposed $1.69 billion fiscal 2027 budget proposal.
Board members will determine the fate of both recommendations when they finalize the budget in mid-April.
At a March 26 joint meeting of the Park and Recreation Commission and Sports Commission, county parks director Jane Rudolph said the proposal to gut gymnastics programming was not made lightly.
She acknowledged closing the programs would be “really impactful to the community of gymnastics, and also really impactful to the staff that would be reduced. This is something we are very much aware of.”
Sports Commission member Meredith Wearing, the mother of an Arlington Aerial, suggested staff had not done enough to recruit instructors for gymnastics programs, and had options for filling Barcroft with other programs during non-peak gymnastics periods.
Rudolph acknowledged the latter suggestion “could be a possibility,” but disputed the suggestion that hiring gymnastics staff was not a priority.
“If they’re qualified, we’ll interview them,” she said of applicants.
Others at the meeting asked about converting gymnastics programs from government-run to nonprofit-based, as is the case in most other local youth sports. Rudolph said converting the program to nonprofit status had not been considered before announcing the proposed closures.
At the monthly meeting of the Park and Recreation Commission that immediately followed the joint session with Rudolph, gymnastics also took center stage in discussions.
“We also talked about the nonprofit idea,” commission chair Jill Barker said after reconvening following breakout sessions among members.
Barker lamented a budget timetable that gave the commission little time to respond to staff budget proposals in February before an April 1 deadline to have comments to County Board members.
“We don’t seem to have the opportunity to discuss the budget among ourselves before we have to turn around” and offer recommendations, the chair said. “I’m not sure what to do about it.”
At the meeting, Barker said she planned to seek input from commission members individually to craft a letter to Board members on the budget by the deadline.
At the joint session with the two commissions, questions were also raised about the long-term plan for the Barcroft facility. While rumors have swirled about its future use, Rudolph said the first step would be closing the facility to provide a top-to-bottom evaluation of its physical status.
“We don’t know the condition underneath the gyms to know what it would cost to restore them,” she said.
County staff have projected a one-year closure for evaluation. At an earlier work session with Rudolph on budget issues, Board member Takis Karantonis said that was an unnecessarily long time to conduct the evaluation.
