Don't close the Glenwood Recreation Center.
That was the consensus of Saturday's community meeting, according to multiple people who attended. The meeting was announced not long after neighborhood leaders discovered city staff were planning to sell the center to Notre Dame High School without consulting community members or their city council representative.
"The location is like a safety net," said one man, who grew up in Glenwood and whose children played at the center. "This is a bad move."
"It's time to stand up," he said, turning to face the audience of around 60 people.
"There is no transparency with this administration," said Marie Mott, a community activist who hosts a local radio show. "Enough is enough."
"Please don't close this center," said one woman, a resident who said she had worked there many years ago.
"Don't move our children. Leave Glenwood alone," said another woman.
The passion felt over the physical space overshadowed the city's plan to highlight the Orange Grove Center facility at Saturday's meeting.
Maura Sullivan, the city's chief operating officer, said there is no done deal, but that city staff did begin exploring the idea - including speaking with Notre Dame High School's administrator and the Orange Grove Center board - after Orange Grove, which has a recycling contract with the city, approached city staff and said it had unused space that could be leased and wondered if the city knew of anyone that might need such space.
"We are not about to do something," she told the crowd. The city is assessing all of its facilities to determine the shape they are in for budgeting purposes, she said.
Lurone "Coach" Jennings, who heads the city's youth and family development department, was present but said little. He acknowledged that he had received many calls from concerned residents after news of the city's plans broke.
The crowd did not want to hear about the merits of the Orange Grove Center, which include a swimming pool. The planned tour of the facility didn't happen. Many expressed confusion. Some in the room had supported Mayor Andy Berke because he had pledged to fix up the Glenwood Recreation Center, which needs a new gym floor, roof and HVAC.
Moving the city's youth and family development services to Orange Grove made no sense, they said. It might bail Orange Grove out, which needs to find a leasee for its unused space, one man said, but Orange Grove isn't even in Glenwood and the facility is older than the Glenwood Recreation Center.
Billy Reynolds, president of the Glenwood Neighborhood Association, said he asked the city to move Saturday's meeting from the Glenwood Recreation Center to Orange Grove, which it did Friday morning, so that the community could see the potential of the space being considered.
During the meeting, however, Reynolds said he didn't think leasing the space was a good idea. He was also concerned that conflict - if only scheduling conflict - might arise if Orange Grove is shared by the YMCA and the city's youth and family development department.
District 9 council representative Demetrius Coonrod responded to the strong sentiment similarly. After learning about the Berke administration's plans to sell the Glenwood center, Coonrod said she demanded the community meeting be held and toured the Orange Grove facility. She said she sees pluses to the move.
Yet, she also acknowledged: "My constituents may feel a different way."
She asked everyone to stay engaged and fight, together, for what they did want.
"Give me the opportunity to serve you like you elected me to do," she said.
Not long after the meeting, a Facebook post by Ricardo Morris, who had attended the meeting, asked Glenwood and Chattanooga residents to call the mayor's office and insist that the recreation center, a prominent meeting place for youth in East Chattanooga, not be sold.
"Our children are not for sale," read the post, which quickly began to spread around social media.
Contact staff writer Joan Garrett McClane at jmcclane@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6601.