The Homer City Council formed a task force Monday that will evaluate what can be done with the Homer Education and Recreation Complex or the HERC.
The council gave the newly minted task force a $3,000 budget to assess how much it will cost to bring the building up to code and what portions are ready to be utilized. The council also tasked the group with exploring whether the city can lease or sell the property among other questions.
The gym is currently the only portion of the building being used. Many want to keep the HERC as a recreational space, but there is uncertainty over how to pay for it.
The task force will partner with the engineering firm Stantec, which has assessed the HERC before, to explore feasible uses for the building or property.
Originally, the council planned to spend $10,000 on the study, but council member Heath Smith said that’s too much.
“At what point is it ever enough that we're going to spend on studies? I want them to be successful, but we have spent so much money over there," he said. "It is appalling.”
Council member Rachel Lord argued that the questions the city is asking stray from previous studies, which focused on utilizing the HERC as a police station, and might warrant the additional cost.
“The information that we have from them to my reading is of somewhat limited utility because we are not proposing to build a new building adjacent to that current structure,” she explained.
The council agreed to reduce the task force’s budget to $3,000. Some members said they might want to revisit the budget issue depending on the answers the task returns with.
Stantec told the city in a letter that it would cost roughly $16,000 to answer all of its questions.
The task force is due to present its findings in November.
