Gary Scurti, a community member of the Austintown Community Fitness Center on the Austintown School District campus, talks about his concerns with the new membership policy, which makes use of the facility only available to students and staff, while standing outside the building Friday afternoon. Photo by Allie Vugrincic

AUSTINTOWN — As of today, the Austintown Community Fitness Center no longer is open to members of the general public, though it remains available for use by students and staff of Austintown Local School District, the Board of Education announced recently.

The change, which immediately affects about 109 residents who hold memberships, is to accommodate a bump in student usage now that the school is utilizing a wellness grant to bring in a strength and conditioning coordinator to work with students in grades 7 to 12 who are on sports teams, said Board of Education president Don Sherwood.

“The volume of kids in there now, it’s exploded,” said Sherwood. “…we’re getting kids healthier.”

The fitness center was opened in 1999 after the Terlesky family made a donation to the school, according to Athletic Department Secretary Ellen Kosa. A contract with the family said the center must be available to the public for at least 10 years. Community members were able to use it for 20 years.

Sherwood said public use of the center was never meant to last forever.

“The original intent was for it to eventually go back to the students,” he said.

Still, members like Peggy Williams, 78, of Austintown, who utilized the facility regularly for about 17 years, are disheartened by the change.

Williams’ daughter, Carol Weakland of Austintown, said Williams works out on the elliptical machine and does weight training regularly.

Williams was a teacher at Austintown for 33 years and joined the fitness center as a community member shortly after her retirement. “People would not come only to work out, but also would come to talk,” Williams said.

Weakland said Williams has a favorite elliptical at the center, and she’s upset because she hasn’t found another like it anywhere else.

“It’s a hard decision because you’ve got people who have been there for a long long time,” Sherwood said.

He said the main concerns were making room for physical education classes and the more than 750 student athletes who will be using the center for conditioning.

This year a roughly $33,000 federal wellness grant brought strength and conditioning coordinator Daniel Wedding to the school to teach basics of lifting and Yoga to more than 750 student athletes.

Gary Scurti of Austintown, another community member of the fitness center, attended the Board of Education’s Aug. 22 meeting to get more information about the change to the membership policy.

“There was no communication at all except for a posting on the door,” said Scurti.

Scurti wondered if safety was the concern and noted the center has several security cameras, and when teams or classes come in, they’re usually with coaches. And seven police officers are on campus daily, he said.

Still, some parents have quietly expressed concerns with the safety of having community members on campus, an issue the board is cognizant of, even though there never has been a safety incident with the fitness center, Sherwood said.

Scruti said in February he had heard reports of trying to drum up more community membership for the center, but now the center’s unprofitableness has been cited as a reason to remove community members from the picture.

He said community usage was “not remotely profitable,” — with yearly memberships running between $50 and $85 a person — but Sherwood said the financial aspect was only a small part of the board’s decision to close it to the public.

Now, all pre-paid memberships will be reimbursed.