It is going to be a lot more difficult for Magnolia residents to just drop in to the Magnolia Community Center this year after the Seattle City Council voted to reduce the center’s operating time to just about 35 hours a week.
No classes will be impacted by this decision. Instead, what the reduced hours mean is that students and adults who have had the opportunity in the past to just drop by the center during the day to use the gymnasium or other facilities, won’t be able to now.
Instead, the center, which used to be open from about 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. during the week, will be open from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the center will be open from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturday, the center will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It will be closed on Sundays.
At the same time, the Queen Anne Community Center will see an increase of about 10 hours in its weekly operating time.
Melissa Valenzuela, the assistant coordinator of the Magnolia Community Center, said that the current budget will require the center to be open only 25 hours during the summer months.
Valenzuela said the budget cuts also mean that the center’s five permanent staff employees have been reduced to four part-time positions.
“The good news is that this will not affect any classes,” Valenzuela said. “We will continue with our programming in the morning and the afternoon. The only difference will be that the time for Tot Gym will be reduced.”
Valenzuela said that, in essence, the changes mean that only those registered to participate in classes being offered at the center will be allowed inside the building before 3 p.m., Monday through Friday.
She also said that someone will be able to answer the phones if people call and want to register for a class or take care of other business.
Valenzuela said another impact is that people who are in the park won’t be able to use the center’s bathroom until 3 p.m. during the week.
The reduced hours are part of push by City Hall to save more than $1 million from Seattle’s community center budgets. Most of that savings would come from reducing the hours at many of the city’s centers.
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