Leonard Bina, Grand Forks, letter: Tax-paid facility shouldn’t lock taxpayers out

GRAND FORKS — The people who now are blocked from using the Alerus Center for exercise are the same people who pay taxes to keep the center operating.

Consider the Alerus Center’s new turf that people have been talking about. If you think of the dimensions of a football field as 140 feet by 340 feet and then do the math, you come up with 5,200 square yards. The cost of the new turf has been estimated as starting at $3.5 million. This comes out to $673 a square yard. That’s some rug.

And again, the same taxpayer who is being told not to exercise in the Alerus Center is underwriting the bill for the turf. Something’s wrong with this picture.

Leonard Bina

Tags: in the mail, alerus center, opinion, health, recreation, walking, updates