5/12/01
 
 We admire the Board of Directors of the Cumberland YMCA. This group, who inherited the Riverside Y recreational facility and all of its problems, is working terribly hard to make a go of what can only be described as an impossible situation.
 
 This Board is stuck with trying to make the facility profitable. But let’s face it - that’s won’t happen, unless we see a huge influx of people who like to ice skate. The embarrassing truth about the Riverside YMCA is that we don’t have the population needed to support it.
 
 That’s why the YMCA Board went to the state asking to restructure their debt, that’s why the Board went to the city of Cumberland asking them to sign off on a loan - supposed to be used for economic development - to get them back on their feet, that’s why they went back to the city and asked the Mayor and Council to forgive a $40,000 utility bill, that’s why they asked the County to “advance” them $100,000 to pay local vendors for services/goods rendered, and that’s why the Y commenced what apparently is going to be an annual fundraising drive, which they hope will raise $150,000.
 
 We understand the problem here. We would just like to see the Y’s Board provide the public with details about their restructuring - what are they doing to prevent being in the same pickle five years from now? Our population is probably going to continue its slow decline - what happens when we’ve lost even more of the Y’s potential members?
 
 We want the Y to succeed. The Riverside Y is a great recreational facility. But the reality is they have got to cut costs. The only way to make the Y financially independent, and to ensure that it is affordable to all area families wishing to participate, is to discontinue some parts of the facility.
 
 We know what a tough decision that would be. But let’s face it: if a community the size of Hagerstown can’t keep an ice rink afloat, how in the world can Cumberland?
 
 Ice rinks are great amenities - if you have a population large enough to support them. We don’t have the people needed to keep the ice rink going. And trying to keep it going is sucking all the profits from the rest of the facility.
 
 We understand that no one wants to talk about this. It’s terribly unfortunate that a few Board members from five years ago - and a local politician with a mammoth ego, who got his name plastered on the building - ignored warning signs before it was even built that the facility would never work. Those people were only interested in being the first Y in the country to have an ice rink.
 
 But it’s time to be realistic. The community needs to support the current Y Board in its efforts to right a very messy situation. So when they start to discuss the demise of the ice rink - which they’ll have to, at some point - let’s not blame them.
 
 They didn’t create the mess, they’re just trying to clean it up.