Denver rec center members, who pay fees beyond their taxes for the right to work out, gather, warm up and shower at facilities citywide, are among the first impacted by budget cuts that Mayor Mike Johnston says are needed to fund the city's immigrant response.
"Denver Recreation Center hours will be modified as the city works to balance demands resulting from the influx of newcomers from the southern border with impacts to city services," Denver Parks and Recreation posted online. "To accommodate new schedules, spring program registration has been postponed and will open Tuesday, March 5 at noon."
Parks and Recreation has posted its new rec center schedule.
Rec center hours have been slashed across the system, and no centers will be open seven days a week.
Those enviable early risers who get their workout in before work will be the hardest hit by the schedule changes. Just 15 rec centers will be open before 8 a.m. Those will be slammed.
The large regional rec centers, like Carla Madison and Central Park, which require a higher price of membership, will now be open just six days.
Parks and Rec says it will be prioritizing programming for youth in the summer, though the department also cut its affordable summer camps. What's the plan? That's still in the works.
The announcement to service cuts come just months after rec center users received massive end-of-year deals on their memberships -- deals happening even as the city sheltered thousands of new immigrants and knew their arrivals were not slowing down.
Johnston, who has asked all city departments to look for ways to shrink their budgets, says the cuts are necessary to pay for the city's support of new immigrants.
"I want it to be clear to Denverites who is not responsible for this crisis that we're in: The folks who have walked 3,000 miles to get to this city," Johnston told reporters last week.
Another entity he doesn't blame: Denver and its spending habits. Instead, he blames the federal government for failing to pass a border deal that would have given additional funding to cities like Denver.
This is not the first time the city has curtailed rec center services to take care of new immigrants. Under Mayor Michael Hancock's administration, a few centers were shut down and converted into emergency shelters. So far, that has not happened under Johnston.
