ANNA MARIA – COVID-19 won’t keep the Center of Anna Maria Island down for long.
The nonprofit announced July 1 via its website, www.centerami.org, that it would reopen Monday, July 13, 18 days after the June 25 closure, the result of a staff member who tested positive for COVID-19 and others who displayed symptoms of the virus.
The staff member tested positive in a round of testing, while others had received negative results as of July 3.
During the closure, the nonprofit hired a professional crew to disinfect the facility and is tackling repairs, maintenance and staff training that usually take place in August.
Executive director Chris Culhane wrote in a July 3 email to The Islander that the nonprofit community center also was evaluating safety measures considering the situation, but the measures they had in place prior to closing appear to have worked.
“There is no evidence that our positive staff member contracted the virus at the center and, in fact, the opposite is probably most likely,” Culhane wrote. “It appears that our quick and decisive actions, as well as strict policies already in place, have mitigated any other issues.”
Before its most recent closure, the center implemented safety measures recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as maintaining 6 feet of distance between people participating in fitness classes.
However, Anna Maria Commissioner Jonathan Crane expressed concern about the center’s safety measures at a July 2 city meeting. He said he’d seen children in the nonprofit’s summer camp disregard social distancing guidelines and instructors without face masks.
“We give them money from time to time, so we ought to be able to tell them to straighten up,” Crane said.
Anna Maria deputy clerk Debbie Haynes told the commission she also worked as a fitness instructor at the center and couldn’t use a mask during the classes because it restricted her breathing and other instructors were having the same problem.
Commissioner Mark Short, also a center board member, said he would relay Crane’s concerns to the nonprofit.
But Culhane, on hearing of Crane’s concerns, referenced “all of the research and studies coming out showing that the spread of the coronavirus in children from ages 5-12 years old is highly unlikely.”
“I would also point out that zero children at the center have tested positive and zero staff members that work with the children every day have tested positive,” he wrote.
“I would hope that this is clear proof that the center is clearly ‘doing enough’ to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.”
Center funding, budget
Despite the pandemic, Culhane said the nonprofit projected the 2019-20 fiscal year, which ended June 30, will finish in the black.
He credited a $84,217 loan the center received through the Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program for keeping the nonprofit afloat. The loan subsidized the center’s payroll and employee health care, utilities and overhead costs.
If the nonprofit is required to repay the PPP loan, it will mature in two years and carries a 1% interest rate per annum.
However, Culhane said the budget for the nonprofit’s 2020-21 fiscal year remained incomplete as of July 3, even though the fiscal year began July 1.
“Due to many of the unknowns, the budget will remain a work in progress and we will more or less produce two or three budgets with a best- and worst-case scenario,” he wrote.