The Village of Wellington held a ribbon cutting on Wednesday, June 16 to celebrate the innovative partnership between the village and the Palm Beach County School District that led to a new multi-use sports complex at Wellington High School that will be available to students and residents alike.
Council members stressed at the time of the project’s approval that using surplus school district land for the new sports complex would preserve village-owned property for a future, as-yet-undetermined, project and provide a state-of-the-art facility for the community.
At the June 22 Wellington Village Council meeting, Vice Mayor John McGovern reiterated his remarks from the ribbon cutting.
“It is going to be a great addition for the community,” he said. “It is spectacular, and I think that it is going to be a tremendous addition to our parks and recreation inventory.”
While the school’s new football stadium was completed last summer, the tennis courts, basketball courts, multi-purpose fields and other amenities were completed over the past year, much of it during the COVID-19 shutdown.
“It was completed essentially during an entire year of COVID,” McGovern said. “It is a wonderful accomplishment.”
Wellington Parks & Recreation Director Eric Juckett said that the $12 million project was celebrated June 16 with an open house event.
“We held competitions and games, and had basketball and soccer shootouts for the students,” he said.
Juckett noted the extensive list of amenities at the facility.
“There are four adjoining synthetic turf fields, and these combine to create one stadium super field,” he said. “There are three basketball courts and eight tennis courts and a running track. Adjacent to the fields is the new building, which houses restrooms, two concession stands and a meeting room.”
He said that the project provides a direct benefit to the community.
“We are truly excited to bring this facility to our residents,” he said. “It creates at-will recreation opportunities, and it will be a direct benefit to the students and the residents of the village.”
Why is Wellington subsidizing the well-funded Palm Beach County School District? Wellington’s taxes pay for yearly grants of $½ M and now $12M to improve District’s property. Is Wellington paying more than twice for public education? School District, Wellington’s property taxes, and the one-penny sale tax surtax.
Why didn’t the Palm Beach County School District spend their money on the sport fields instead of the Village’s? Who paid for the others High Schools’ sports fields?
When did the Village’s voters, vote to spend $12M of our taxes to improve the District’s property? The Village told voters before the one-penny sale tax surtax vote that the taxes would be use to improve Village properties, no mention of using it to improve someone else’s property.
When taxes are intermingled between independent government entities, transparency becomes cloudy.
Bruce Tumin