Reply to Arlington proposing to close county gymnastics program

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The County also runs travel basketball in addition to County rec basketball. As many have stated, privately-run travel soccer and baseball get a sweetheart deal using County and school-owned fields. Tennis and pickleball players get to use courts for free when not in use for programs. If the families in the gymnastics program can get to a better spot with cost recovery, Arlington should keep the program. [b]Otherwise, be prepared for your kids’ favorite sport to be next. [/b]

Arlington is continuing to cut things that middle and upper middle class residents enjoy to support more services for affordable housing and supporting the people that brings in. Housing funding has not been cut at all in this cycle. Maybe that’s a good thing, but the County needs to be more transparent about it, and decide if it wants to support all its residents or only its most “vulnerable,” as Matt Di Ferranti stated. [/quote]

This is not a meaningful threat for many of us who are expressing unhappiness with the current state of the gymnastics program because of the fundamental differences between other sports and gymnastics. All of the other sports you mention use outdoor facilities with little or no specialty equipment that are a standard part of DPR offerings in most municipalities. No one thinks DPR is going to close all the baseball and soccer fields (which are also used by everyone from schools to private travel leagues to adult rec leagues and more). Basketball gyms are used similarly plus get used as multipurpose spaces for other community events. Tennis and pickleball courts are incredibly cheap to build and maintain compared to other facilities and used by all ages. None of these facilities are going to be closed even if the county decided to stop offering the competition teams you mentioned. Heck most of these facilities would continue to be in use even if the county didn't teach rec classes on them, because providing courts and fields for general interest sports is just a baseline DPR activity. Anyone can play basketball or tennis or soccer. You could go use one of these facilities today after spending $40 at Dick's. Which also means it's accessible to people at all skill and ability levels. Same with pools -- the county is never getting rid of public swimming pools. These are baseline, general interest sports.

A gymnastics gym with specialized equipment that requires specialized instruction to use is not the same. If you want to save the gymnastics program, you need to wrap your head around the idea that gymnastics is different as a sport, it is fundamentally less accessible due to the nature of the sport and equipment, and it is harder for the county to offer it as a rec sport. Once you absorb that, you can start figuring out a solution that actually works.

Claiming that the county might shut down baseball fields tomorrow based on this precedent is not it. No, they won't.[/quote]

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