One of the more colorful stories making the rounds in the county is the one about a 4-H Club being booted out of the Lecanto Canning Center by a county-led class of belly dancers.

Today, that issue was brought to the county commission’s table by a young 4-H girl, Katie Mattingly.

Her presentation was compelling as she raised a number of issues her club had with the county park and recreation department’s idea of taking the club’s time slot and giving it to a belly dancing class. “Unofficially, we have heard that the belly dancing class, that is the cause of our club having to leave, has less than five members,” she said.

In concluding her speech to county commissioners, she said, “Is our club really such a bother? Do we take up that much time and space? I don’t think so. And if you really thought hard about it, you would see it my way, too. Do the voices of 44 children not matter? We want to stay,” she said.

Would that the issue would have been that simple. But the county commission had previously tasked the parks and recreation department with running county building operations like a business. Clubs like the 4-H’ers don’t pay to use to use the Lecanto Canning Center building. Belly dancers do pay. Even with that distinction, however, the county was willing to let the 4-H groups continue to use the canning center free of charge, but move one class to a different night. But there, as they say, was the rub. The group didn’t want to move to a diffferent night, and took the issue to the local newspaper for publicity.

Actually, the situation goes beyond 4-H’ers and belly dancers. When the county charges for the use of its buildings, to help pay for lights, water and maintenance, these types of issues will surface again, as County Commissioner Winn Webb noted.

That was a thought shared by County Administator Brad Thorpe, who also told commissioners, “This is a test case of your resolve for the next budget because, historically, things are not going to be the same in the future.”

Thorpe and Assistant County Administrator Eber Brown met with 4-H groups on Monday night. In all, there are three 4-H groups that use the facility at different times of the month. The group that Mattingly belongs to meets on Wednesdays, and doesn’t want to change that time slot, even though they were offered either a different facility or different day at the canning center.

“This issue — the bellydancing issue … it could have been anything,” Brown told commissioners. “It could have been a knitting class or whatever. I apologized to the (4-H) group last night, and the method in which they found out about it. We would have liked to have discussed it with them prior to it becoming an issue in the newspaper.”

The Wednesday-night 4-H was offered the use of the center every Monday night., or the use of any other locale in the county, free of charge. In trying to book the center, Brown said, some have wanted the use of the building for several nights in succession, but the permanent Wednesday meeting precluded that from happening.

“This creates somewhat of a dilemma here, because really and truly what you’re saying is what we have espoused as a commission (in that) we want to run government like a business,” Commissioner Webb said. “We’re not trying to take away – or charge – the 4-H, all we’re asking them to do is go to a different night.”

County Commission Chairman Gary Bartell asked Brown why the 4-H group didn’t find moving from Wednesday to Monday night acceptable. “It wasn’t acceptable, sir,” Brown said. “Mostly tradition. They’ve met on Wednesday night for a long time, and they want to keep it on Wednesday night.”

Brown said he also offered the group, to make the transition to Monday nights easier, an option to wait until the end of the school year before implementing the new day. He said they turned that down, too.

In the end, the commissioners agreed that the solution offered by Brown, and waiting until the end of the school year to re-evaluate the group’s needs and the county’s and make any changes at the end of the school year., If no other group wants to use the center on that day, the schedule can stay as it is currently.

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