Some residents question camp’s affordability
By Teresa Sargeant
Reporter
The Apopka City Council voted 5-0 at its Wednesday, March 19, meeting to approve the newly revised athletic summer camp program, which will have 100 camper slots per session for youth ages 6 to 13.
The camp will run from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Fran Carlton Recreation Center. The location is a walkable distance to Edwards Field for outdoor athletics, the Apopka Action Sports Park and the splash pad at Kit Land Nelson Park for water days.
Camp participants will get transported to Phillis Wheatley Elementary school gym for indoor athletics, the Northwest Recreation Complex for outdoor athletics, and go on a one-off field trip per week.
The initial plan was to approach schools in the area to run the program there during the summer. City staff did work on that program model and met with the schools. However, because summer months were the time for schools to get a lot of facility maintenance and upgrades done, there was a lack of space for the athletic camp.
“The staff went back to the drawing board a little bit and adjust the model, and the current plan is to operate the camp out of the Fran Carlton Center,” Radley Williams, city parks and recreation director, said.
The cost of the camp is $125 for residents and $150 for non-residents. There is intent to add registration capacity if demand grows, Williams said.
While Mayor Bryan Nelson and Williams discussed the athletic camp’s budget, Williams pointed out that the aim is to break even and that resident discounts are traditionally offered to taxpayers.
“One of the reasons the resident discount is traditionally in place for the program, especially recreation programming, is because for the consideration that taxpayers of the city are contributing taxes to the budget that is paying for the program,” Williams said.
AdventHealth offers $15,000 worth of scholarships annually to help city residents afford the camp, but some residents questioned the program’s affordability.
Leroy Bell brought up the camp’s affordability in light of the city’s most recent water rate increases.
“You have people over in South Apopka that would like to probably use this also, and they get some pretty hefty water bills over there,” Bell said. “They had nothing to do with what happened with the city, with raising it. So, would that pertain to the residents over there also? I just see you said there’s opportunities for the residents of Apopka. What about those that are not residents?”
In response, Williams said that the scholarships are available only for city residents with reductions of 25% or 50% off the tuition.
Virginia Street compared the camp’s cost to other local programs and the inclusion of field trips in the price. Williams clarified that the program includes transportation and materials, and field trips will be announced once registration opens.
“Just like Mr. Bell said, the people on the other side of the tracks are not going to be able to have any access to any of the scholarships, right?” Street said to Williams. “I’m not going to let it go because the people on the other side the tracks paying the high water bill, as he said, we really need to be a little more fair about that exception there.”
Sylvester Hall asked about the scholarships’ true cost and also emphasized the importance of seeing that the camp gets a good turnout. To echo Bell’s point about the other side of the tracks, Hall recommended that the city thinks about the needs of residents in South Apopka as well as Apopka. He called for annexing South Apopka to unify the community.
“When we do these things, let’s try to have a little more concept that we try to embrace everybody. You hear some people say that, ‘Well, I don’t like being called South Apopka. It’s just Apopka.’ Well, if that’s the case, let’s make it Apopka, and let’s try to uplift and back to what my gentleman said here earlier, the annexation. That’s long overdue.”
After the Council vote, Commissioner Nick Nesta offered to meet with Williams separately to review some of the funding and how Nesta could add to the scholarship.
The Apopka Chief is an award-winning weekly newspaper serving the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923.
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