‘Do kids pay taxes?’
A message received from the Town of Black Mountain Recreation Director
Frank Cappelli
Opinion
The Valley Echo
November 15, 2022
Frank Cappelli has been a member of the Black Mountain Recreation Commission since July. Photo by Fred McCormick
I wish I could say that I was shocked, on Oct. 14, when I received a text message from the director of the Black Mountain Recreation and Parks Department that read: “Do kids pay taxes?” Sadly, through my conversations with many parents who have lived in the Swannanoa Valley for more than a few years, I’ve learned they already had an inkling of how the person in that position feels about the kids in our town.
I was appointed to the town’s Recreation Commission in July. The role of a commission member is to serve as a liaison between citizens, the town council and the town staff.
In my role on this board, I need to bring the community’s attention to what type of leadership is in charge of one of the most visible departments in town – and sound the alarm about the risks that continuing down this path could pose for the community.
While I am very concerned about the deprogramming that has happened over the past few years in the Recreation and Parks Department, what is even more concerning to me is the amount of apathy I hear when I talk to parents. There seems to be an overwhelming feeling that the local government has let them down.
Just a couple years ago, you could go to the Recreation and Parks website and find a diverse list of activities, programs and events for folks in the community to participate in. To illustrate how parents feel let down by the Recreation and Parks Department, take a look at what its previous website (linked here) looked like in 2019.
If you go on the website now, which is linked here, you will see that the department only offers youth soccer. While we are thankful for having youth soccer, the town offerings for it are limited. My 8-year-old has a team to play on and he loves it.
But what about my son who is 5 and also loves soccer? There is no team for him.
Our family needs to decide between signing my younger child up for the Asheville league, which would be appropriate for his age and skill but would take us out of our community, or have him play on the same team as his older brother with children who have several years more experience than him.
At the end of the day, the most appealing option is to just take both kids into Asheville. That way at least they know they will play with the same kids as they grow up. By now, there are dozens of families who no longer even consider Black Mountain for youth sports; they know that Asheville is the only legitimate option to consider. It’s no wonder so many of Buncombe County's best young athletes, who are born right here in the Swannanoa Valley, choose to play high school sports at an Asheville or private option, rather than suiting up for Owen.
This lack of programming bleeds over to the facilities we have in Black Mountain. If the town doesn’t run soccer leagues, then the town doesn’t need to maintain soccer fields. If the soccer and baseball fields and basketball courts aren’t maintained, there isn’t a reason, let alone the capacity, to offer any programming.
Three seasons ago, the town canceled its youth basketball program. Based on what I have been able to gather, the town did this because its insurance provider “suggested” it not use the basketball hoops anymore. The insurance provider did not tell the town they could not offer basketball with the current hoops – it was simply a suggestion.
This is now the third year that there has not been a basketball league run by the Recreation and Parks Department.
Instead of ordering new hoops and taking the extra precautions to keep kids safer until they could be installed, the town canceled basketball for everyone in Black Mountain. Heck, they don’t even support adult basketball anymore.
The Recreation and Parks director has mentioned that no one uses the Cragmont basketball courts. I have even heard it suggested that those basketball courts might be put to better use by a sport other than basketball due to this lack of use. That’s ridiculous.
Those courts have needed to be repaved for more than a decade. You can’t even bounce a basketball straight up and down in most areas, there is grass growing up through the cracks in the surface and there are often no nets on the hoops.
The courts have been neglected so much that some people feel it’s appropriate to treat them as a dog park. More than one person has told me that they’ve had to leave after trying to play there because they get dog feces on their ball.
I think it would be fair to argue that the court isn’t used because the facility isn’t taken care of. It’s not that kids just all of the sudden don’t want to play basketball anymore.
I encourage everyone in the community to go over to the field at Cragmont Park. The town put a gravel track around the field recently with a metal lined barrier between the grass and gravel. In 2019 that field was one of the youth soccer fields used by the town recreation soccer league. Now the metal lining has made it so dangerous that the town will no longer allow soccer games to be played there.
Because of this lack of foresight - in addition to all the deprogramming, soccer has now completely lost one of the three areas in town where outdoor soccer could be played – the others two that remain are in the outfield of the baseball and softball fields.
At this point I can’t help but understand why so many parents in town feel so apathetic. It feels like the town has completely turned its back on the youth in the community.
We are all taxpayers and yet Josh Henderson – the director of the Recreation and Parks Department - asks questions like: “Do kids pay taxes?”
Frank Cappelli is one of five residents appointed by the Black Mountain Town Council to serve on the Recreation Commission, which meets monthly to discuss policies and programs related to the town’s Recreation and Parks Department.