16-year-old Agoura/Calabasas Community Center seeks fresh identity





WEIGHTY MATTERS—Health and fitness are key components of the Agoura/Calabasas Community Center on Malibu Hills Road in Agoura.

WEIGHTY MATTERS—Health and fitness are key components of the Agoura/Calabasas Community Center on Malibu Hills Road in Agoura.

The Agoura Hills/Calabasas Community Center is grappling with an identity crisis.

The center, which offers a gym, rock climbing wall, basketball courts, rentable event rooms, and teen, senior and after-school programs, is examining how to move forward with innovative programs not offered by other local cities and private fitness clubs.

During recent meetings regarding the future of the facility, Agoura Hills Community Services Director Amy Brink gave a brief history of the facility, which opened in Calabasas in 1999 under a joint agreement between Agoura Hills and Calabasas. The two cities fund and oversee the center’s operation through a joint powers authority.

Annemarie Flaherty, the community center’s executive director, outlined new goals that would provide a direction for the center through 2021.

Among the goals are maintaining effective leadership, increasing the center’s visibility and establishing long-term financial strategies and measures of performance.

“What sticks in my mind is that we need to be looking for complementary activities at the center and not duplicative ones,” Agoura Hills Councilmember Bill Koehler said. “We need to look at programs that we don’t have at our recreation center or facilities.”

Koehler worried about similar programs being offered by the community center, the new Agoura Hills Recreation and Event Center, and the soon-to-be-built Calabasas Senior Center.

Koehler said the community center gym programs do not duplicate other offerings in the area, although that may change when L.A. Fitness opens in Agoura Hills next year. Flaherty said the focus of the community center remains health, wellness and fitness.

Money matters

The cities pay a combined $50,000 per year to operate the facility, and an additional $50,000 is provided by Los Angeles County Proposition A park funds, which will end next year.

Agoura Hills Mayor Harry Schwarz, who is on the community center’s board of directors, said both cities might want to increase their financial support of the center to make it more affordable for users. Schwarz said he thought the operation was intended to be profitable.

“I’m concerned about the financial stability and sustainability to keep on supporting it,” Councilmember Denis Weber said.

“The price point is very important,” Councilmember Illece Buckley Weber said.

Councilmember Linda Northrup said the center could expand its reach by offering a business center for home office workers.

“ Make it interactive,” Northrup said, suggesting members be offered an area that has printers, Internet capabilities and other perks that they could use to run their home businesses.

Councilmember Illece Buckley Weber said a business center would be a viable option, but only if the community wants it.

Calabasas Mayor James Bozajian, chair of the community center’s board of directors, said the facility is a model for the state and among the few community centers to operate “anywhere near breaking even.”

“It was not expected to break even,” Bozajian said.

After-school programs

Flaherty said negotiations are underway to allow the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Conejo Valley to lease space for an after-school program at the center. The programming for fifth- to eighth-grade students would be developed and overseen by the club.

The move could help the center turn a profit, Flaherty said.

The community center’s after school program serves about 70 students. Flaherty said that if the Boys & Girls Clubs leased space at the center membership could increase to over 100 students, mostly those attending A.E. Wright Middle School.

Flaherty said the center’s after-school teen program costs $350 per semester. The Boys and Girls Club and not determined their rates yet if the lease goes forward, but they currently charge $150 to $200 per month depending on the club. 

If the club’s fees are higher than people can afford, Flaherty suggested that the club might offer a scholarship program to help defray costs. 


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