May 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 12

Front Page
When Fitness Gets Competitive
Arizona town's public fitness center challenged
By Lauren Hoffmann

I

t is time. You have put it off but you finally hit your breaking point. You have
to get in shape and get healthy. It's time to join a gym, so you start shopping
around. The first fitness center you visit is across town, nice equipment, good
classes, but kind of far for you to go to get a workout - you'd have to take the
bus to get there and the rates are a bit pricey, especially since you don't have a
lot of extra cash for a monthly membership. The next fitness center you visit is
closer, equipment looks nice, has some great amenities and the pricing is reasonable - still a bit high for you, so you are not sold. You check out one more -
your local recreation center run by your town's park and recreation agency. Great
equipment, location is excellent at the center of town, good selection of classes,
everything is on par with the other two and the price is well within your budget,
plus you get to see all your friends from around town. What could be better?
For many park and recreation professionals who operate recreation or
fitness centers, this is probably a familiar scenario heard from your clientele,
or maybe this was your own scenario
when you shopped around for a fitness
center. Whatever it may be, you're likely
under the impression that what we have
here is the classic American free-market
shopping experience. Or is it?
In the Arizona town of Gilbert, a
local thinktank is challenging the right
of the town to operate the 11-year old,
$11 million Freestone Recreation Center, claiming that the public facility violates state law and unfairly competes
with private fitness centers. As reported last month in the Arizona Republic,
conservative thinktank The Goldwater Institute issued a letter to Gilbert's
mayor in November contending that
the recreation center provides services
beyond the scope allowed by state statute and is therefore " unauthorized and
illegal. " They also suggest that local private health clubs have been forced to essentially fund the competition through
taxes and claim that they cannot equal-

10

Parks & Recreation

ly compete with the recreation center,
which provides basketball and racquetball courts, a 40-foot rock-climbing wall,
exercise equipment and saunas for town
residents at the daily rate of $4 (non-residents at $6). Goldwater is asking the
town to either shut the facility down or
sell it to a private company, hinting that
noncompliance with their request could
mean legal action.
This incident in Arizona appears to
be the latest resurgence of an otherwise
constantly simmering controversy of
public competition with private businesses. In fact, Parks & Recreation Law
Review columnist James Kozlowski
covered this very same topic in 1982
(http://classweb.gmu.edu/jkozlows/
lawarts/12DEC82.pdf), the initial year
of the Law Review column, and again
in 1993 (http://classweb.gmu.edu/
jkozlows/lawarts/09SEP93.pdf). In
his columns, Kozlowski identifies that
the issue is not " unfair competition, "
but that the legal question is whether
" such facilities and programs provide
public benefits which are expressly or
impliedly authorized under state law. "

| M AY 2 0 1 3 | W W W. N R PA . O R G

For the Town of Gilbert, this is
where things get complicated. Goldwater is claiming that because Gilbert does not have a voter-approved
charter that broadly defines its powers, the town's authority comes from
state statute and thus its powers are
limited, calling into question the limits of local governmental authority
under a city charter and/or state law.
Officials in Arizona, however, contend that whether there is an adopted
charter or not, cities and towns have
basically the same powers, and, in recent years, the legislature has granted
more authority to " general law " cities
that don't have a charter. They also
note that even without a charter, communities still have the right to develop
parks. In addition, the Arizona Republic
reports that Gilbert's town attorney Susan Goodwin dismissed Goldwater's
claims, asserting via written letter the
town's right to own and operate the facility for the " good of the public, " and
stating towns are not restricted from
competing with the private sector in
providing recreation opportunities.
Currently, the Gilbert Town Council is
mulling over Goldwater's claims. More
news is certain to come out of Arizona
on this, which could be monumental for
municipalities in the state and elsewhere.
Undoubtedly, this won't be the last time
the issue of competition among public
and private flares up again. As Kozlowski says, " What's going on in Arizona is
nothing new, just the latest variation in an
ongoing theme. "
Lauren Hoffmann is NRPA's Senior PR and
Communications Manager (lhoffmann@nrpa.org).
May 2013 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of May 2013 - Parks & Recreation
