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HARTINGTON — The Hartington City Council met with administrators from both Hartington schools Monday in hopes of finding a solution to an expensive problem.
The 20- year-old Hartington Community Complex all-weather track has aged well, but it has now outlived its projected lifespan, City Councilman Roman Sudbeck said.
Sudbeck has met with representatives from several different companies over the last year to findout how to best fix or replace the track.
Replacing the track will cost between $600,000 and $650,000 he said.
Sudbeck asked Hartington-Newcastle Supt. A.J. Johnson and Cedar Catholic High School President Dan Hoesing to attend Monday's meeting so they could all talk about how to proceed with replacing the track.
Currently, the school's pay $8,000 a year to rent the facility. That rental fee doesn't even cover yearly upkeep, let alone give the city any money to hold back for a major project such as this.
Mayor Mark Becker said he hoped the three entities could work together to share the burden of making the repairs.
'Here is our dilemma,' Becker said. 'Typically, cities don’t own tracks, typically the schools do. By no means is the rent we receive enough to build a brand new track.'
Hoesing, who has been the Superintendent at several school districts in his 40-plus year career, said he's 'been involved with five school districts that have owned tracks. The city was not involved in any of those.'
Becker said the Hartington Community Complex has 'been a tremendous thing for our community. But it’s been a cost to the community that most communitiess don't have.' 'That complex is really something to be proud of, but to ask the residents of the city of Hartington to to pay for all of it, I don’t think that’s fair. What is currently happening is the residents of Hartington are paying the full load for a track that residents from outside of city limits get to enjoy.'
Becker said the Council was 'just asking for solutions, and we don’t have one tonight.'
Johnson and Hoesing said they would both relay this information to their respective school boards in an effort to find a solution to get the track updated.
“ That complex is really something to be proud of, but to ask the residents of the city of Hartington to pay for all of it, I don’t think that’s fair, — Mayor Mark Becker ”
