City Discusses Cub Scout Building Needs

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Ulysses Scout Troop 186 is active and growing. And with the addition of Girl Troop 186-G, that growth will be accelerated.

But the Scout House at East Flower and South Glenn is less than stellar.

The building is owned by the city but is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. And that’s the least of its worries.

“It’s very old (and) needs a lot of work done,” said Ulysses City Administrator Luke Grimes. “It is not ADA compliant; it is not even close to being ADA compliant.

“I think it’s worth the council discussing. I think it’s clear the Scout program is doing well and is an asset to the community.”

Grimes said the city council needs to decide what the city’s relationship and its level of support for the scouts is.

“What does that look like moving forward?” Grimes asked. “Do we want to help them get this building whipped into shape or would we consider, down the road, trying to put them somewhere else, somewhere newer?”

Grimes had city engineer Peter Earles “spitball” a price for a new scout house or put together a community project to get that done, and Earles estimated between $120,000 and $150,000.

Scout leader Craig Hampton said the number of scouts has doubled every year for the past three to four years. The troop is chartered by Heartland Faith.

“We’re up to 20 active just in the Cub Scouts,” Hampton said. “We are growing our troop this year, and as of two days ago we chartered a second troop, a full girl troop.

“They will be separated and so we have our boy troop and a girl troop so we can still teach the boys to be boys. There’s a lot of learning opportunities for the girls in the same program.”

Last year the troop fixed the upstairs bathroom, painted and replaced lights, spending $1,200 out of its own budget. Hampton noted an electrical issue that was recently discovered, as well, and the recent rain partially flooded the basement.

“We do love the history of that building, since the time it was a church,” Hampton added. “It was the original church for Ulysses (and) from the time it stopped being a church, at that point it has always been a Scout building; it was given to the city for the directive of being a Scout building.

“That’s where we’ve always been; we love being there, we love having a home, but we totally understand that at some point the safety of the kids outweighs the history of the building.”

Councilman Terry Maas said it’s a valued program and asked if there could be a temporary home for the scouts until the city knows what the approximate cost would be and see if other entities involved to help so it wouldn’t be a financial burden.

“I think your programs validity speaks for itself,” Maas said. “I think with us and maybe some local businesses or other areas, if we could look at getting a master plan together to find you a new home.”

Maas said nostalgia is nice, but it comes with a cost of the long haul.

Councilman Mark Diaz said he wasn’t sure if the historical society would even let the city get rid of the building.

“If it’s still gonna cost us $150,000 and then we’re gonna have to put them somewhere else then I would say it would be easier to put them somewhere else temporarily, and then us remodel the whole building because I can’t see the historical society letting us tear that down or get rid of it for being that it was the first church in Ulysses,” Diaz said.

The building is not on an historical registry, but Grimes said there would be people very upset about that.

“We need to weigh what the public is gonna think about us if we were to tear it down or destroy it, or anything like that,” Diaz added. “I agree with Terry (Maas) and I agree with the community that these kids have done a lot for the community, and we need to make sure that we take care of them and see what we can do to help them out, finding them a facility.”

City attorney Lynn Koehn asked what the troop’s relationship with churches, or the school district is in order to provide a temporary meeting place while the building is being renovated.

Councilman Ken Warner said in most cities, the sponsoring organization - in this case Heartland Faith Church - provides the meeting space.

Hampton said that with three large groups meeting multiple times per week, they would have to work with the church and figure out the logistics.

An immediate need is the windows since they don’t close.

“We’ve band-aided it for so many years because we’ve always been afraid that if we come forward, we would lose our home,” Hampton said. “We’ve had discussions, as leaders, do we just figure out how to pay for it ourselves and we’ve gotten to the point where we just can’t, being a nonprofit and trying to put our money towards the kids, we just can’t do it anymore.”

Grimes said that’s relatable but eventually the place is going to fall down. Hampton said he would get with the church about meeting space.

“Can you work on that and give us some information?” Diaz asked. “Or find out if they’re willing to let you guys be there all the time and then we could just do what we have to do to the building later on.

“I’m not trying to take it away from you, I think it’s a great organization and I think we need to be able to help out somewhat.”

Grimes said he would reach out to different organizations to see who would be willing to help, and report back to the council.