Mr welgman couldn't be more corrrect in his assessment. Ms Ottis has done an extremely incompetent job managing this resource. It was our tax dollars that funded the vented and should be striving to meet the needs of the community. I was a dedicated User of the center for several years until they eliminated morning and weekend hours. Ms Otis explanatiion to me was that the district wasn't interested in the community's needs for the center. Equipment became rundown to the point it became dangerous to use. A clear case of mismanagement and no willingness for accountability. Feels like once the tax dollars were given the mission of the center changed.

Let's get our facts straight (frequent user) 1) Comm Ed does a horrible job at monitoring attendance and collecting payments. Therefore, the 1.4 users/hour is a completely useless, misleading statistic. 2) The facility is poorly maintained and employees are not monitored- mngnt failure 3) The fitness center has much more to offer than local gyms (freewieghts, squat racks, kettlebells, platforms, etc.) But they do not advertise it! I have yet to see an ad in Community Life for the Fitness Center (not aquatic center)- another misleading quote. Why not use free sign ads at HS gyms and fields? 4) Comm Ed does not provide a fitness-only membership (<$25) like other school gyms do. Instead, users must also pay for pool usage which adds cost and reduces competitiveness. 5) Tax payers were told the facility would be open to the public when we bought the bond a year ago. Now the equipment is here and we are being booted! Is this the level of trust we should have in our Board leadership?! Comm Ed has failed to track attendance, failed to collect revenues to run the facility, failed to clean and maintain it, failed to advertise it, failed to maintain weekend hours, and failed to provide a price plan for fitness only. Many other school gyms including Milford run successful, profitable fitness centers- why can't we? We should not suffer due to Comm Ed neglect and mismanagement. Comm Ed should be held accountable to properly manage the fitness center and the bond that bought it!

Declining use is most certainly due to residents not being informed. This is the first I've heard of the fitness center being open to the public. Granted I've only been a Hartland resident for a few short years.

Sounds like the fitness center simply needs new management. There are plenty of ways to advertise for free (social media ring a bell?) Not to mention school and community newsletters. Closing this venue to the public is a shame and will promote a lack of trust toward future public funded projects. As I stated before I'm new to the area and will almost certainly vote no to anything asking for public funding.

Take a look at the photos I posted on this article folks. These are actual photos of our gym at Hartland High School. Yes..this is the facility your kids and the tax payers, use every day.

“Gee..... as the director of Hartland Community Education, I can’t seem to figure out why the membership is down.”

How about these reasons:
1) No weekend hours
2) Employees who do absolutely nothing but text, read and socialize.
3) NO advertising
4) Broken equipment
5) Filthy conditions
6) Inoperative televisions

I have personally spoken to Ms. Julie HILL and Ms. Michelle OTIS about this gem of a facility. It's apparent; there is nothing more these two want than to shut this place down. Less work and responsibility for the same pay! They have plenty of excuses why to close it, but not one idea of how to make it better. If Hartland’s Caroselli Aquatic & Fitness Center were a private business, the CEO of said corporation would have to dismiss its managers.

The taxpayers voted for a bond to revamp the fitness center. This week a lot of beautiful new equipment (treadmills, weights, bars, platforms, kettlebells, power cage, med balls, etc.) was delivered to the school. Guess what? You can’t use it now because OTIS said so.

Good move by the school district! Why were the schools involved in running a fitness center in the first place? Their mission is to educate kids. Not run a taxpayer subsidized fitness center for the handful of people that use the place.

classic bait and switch by the district. 1-Solicit support from the taxpayers to vote for the bonds needed to 1st fund the center and then later to refurb it by highlighting the benefits for the entire community. 2-Once you get the funding from the taxpayers, take away the resource from them. 3-Spin the rationale by blaming the community for not supporting the resource vs the failure of leadership that it really is.

Can anyone blame me if i'm skeptical of district claims made for future bond votes?

Yeah Dan..you're spot on. It sure seems like fraud to me. Entice and sell the voters on something and then take it away from them.

Mission Statement:

The mission of Hartland Community Education is to furnish the community of Hartland, through citizen involvement, programs in recreation, enrichment and cultural activities providing lifelong learning.

Yeah right...

Why not close this facility to students ( who are spitting gum onto the floor)? Why keep Hartland residents from using this facility?

Hartland Eagle....I'm curious, why do you object to the fitness center so much? I can tell you why I'm for it...because I use it, pay for it and love what it is. Heck..I even have my real name on here to keep it legitimate. I don't need a moniker to hide behind. What is your real name and affiliation to the school?

hartland eagle does seem to have the talking points down a little too much to be just another casual commentator...

i eagerly await the unmasking of the eagle

uh huh.
here's another compliment---anonymous is also smarter after engaging in name-calling.

As a third-party observer of this conversation (I have no real opinion on the issue), I do think that those in favor of keeping the fitness center open to the public are making points the other side is failing to address:

-If the bonds were promoted with the claim that it would benefit the public, not just the students, and now that the bonds have passed, the public is losing their benefit, how is that justified? Is it that the bond promoters *didn't* say it would benefit the community outside the school? Even if I don't personally use the fitness center, I would be more likely to vote for a bond in favor of investing more in it if I felt it was open to all, not just the students.

-Do those who are in favor of closing the fitness center from the public feel that the fitness center was given a good chance for profitability? I too will admit I was unaware of the fitness center, yet aware of the aquatic center. It's anecdotal, sure, but I do try to be somewhat knowledgable about our community. So it seems reasonable to think that better promotion is needed.

-With new equipment soon to be installed, and the fitness center therefore being revamped in a way, isn't this a great opportunity to try and save the program? If the status quo (in terms of what the center is offering) is changing, why not see if the status quo (in terms of the center's popularity) also changes?

Questions for those in favor of the fitness center staying open:

-Couldn't the center be viewed as a "sunk cost", and implementing some of the recommended changes (more hours of operation, additional capital investments like new equipment and TVs, higher labor costs needed to keep the center clean, additional advertising, etc) simply be "throwing good money after bad"?

-Is there a level of use that you would admit is low enough to justify closing the center? Even if the 1.4 people/hour use rate is incorrect, is there a rate that could be too low that, even if it results in a net profit for the center, is still not enough use to justify the investment in time/money/effort of the school. There is an "opportunity cost" associated with the school's investment in labor and capital, and so isn't it fair to look at other ways the school could use those resources to provide potentially greater value in some other way?

-In that same line of thinking, I think we all agree that the school's top priority should be the education of our students. Couldn't these community-based programs be viewed as diverting attention away from those goals, and it is therefore justified to hold these programs to a higher standard than normal? That the programs need not just make a profit, but be overwhelmingly convincing in their benefits to the school?

I've been in that gym and am ashamed of those two clowns sitting there doing nothing while the gym rotted. Dust bunnies and trash all over the place. Broken equipment and now that they new stuff is in, Otis decides to shut the place down. If the nepotism hadn't taken over, maybe some decent employees could have kept the place up. I have lived in Hartland for many years and had no idea this place existed until told by Vaughan that the place was there. It's a shame the township got their bond, and now closes it up to the people that pay for it. Ms. Otis should be ashamed of herself, but is too arrogant to be.

What? We have a fitness center??? As in a gym???? So this whole time I have been dropping my daughter off to swim, I could have worked out at the same time? I have been in Hartland for almost 5 years and had no idea.

Trina, you should call the Community Education and Fitness Center directors and let them know. They don't believe the residents of Hartland were kept in the dark about this awesome place.

What we need now is for Community Ed and the citizens of Hartland to find a solution to keep this place open. With all the new gear we just paid for, it's like a whole new gym.

Awesome! If only we can get Trina to show up once an hour, we can get the average up over 2 people per hour.

The fitness center is advertised in every issue of the Comm Ed catalog, just like every other offering they have. This one can't pay its own way. With it closed down, Comm Ed can now focus their resources on things that will have wider appeal to the community.

Somebody answer the phone at Community Life! Budweiser, Pepsi and Ford are calling to re-direct their marketing budgets.

JK, obviously the Fitness center doesn't have big bucks to market, but there have been several other good low-cost marketing ideas surfaced here. How about some social media? My point is don't assume that the current strategy was sufficient.

Ancient Proverb: "If you don't change your direction, you're likely to end up where you're headed"

Clarify this for me, is this fitness center different than the weight room used by the teams on the second floor? (by the track?) I'm confused, is this by the pool on the lower level? If so, I didn't know we had one.