Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — In his first update of the new year on Emerald City, City Manager Paul Hughes will be presenting the City Council with some hopeful news. The community has pledged almost enough money to secure a lease on the city youth center through August.

The City Council will decide tonight whether to sign a lease with the landlord on a month-to-month basis until Nov. 4. The city expects to be ready to move into another facility after August but wanted to be safe. The lease agreement is a month-to-month deal, with the city able to pull out after any month without breaking the lease, Hughes said. The council already supported signing the lease at a previous meeting.

Emerald City was in danger of closing this year after the landlord raised the rent on the building. The city was able to negotiate the offer down but was still unwilling to foot the bill for the lease, though it kept all full-time staff members and programming dollars in the budget.

The city is ready to move the programs into the modulars next to the ice rink in September once the new rink is completed.

The community, meanwhile, has taken up the cause. To date, $20,200 has been secured and $7,500 is still pending to fund the center on 11th Street. That leaves only $484 to be collected if the two groups still deciding the United Way and the Rotary Club agree to the allocations.

While most donations came from large groups, one came from a smaller contingent. Two community members who did not wish to be identified gave $5,000.

Millie Beall, the executive director of Routt County United Way and chairwoman of the Human Resource Coalition, said the United Way will consider the city's request in February. She said it was a nontraditional request especially to the HRC, given the fact that the city sends money to that agency.

"It was for the HRC," she said. "It was out of the box the city asking for city money."