Parents angry about changes to community center

Community members are demanding the Classic Community Center be kept the way it is after information about alleged changes to the facility surfaced. The Classic Community Center at the Andrew Jackson

News 12 Staff

Jan 8, 2008, 4:05 PM

Updated 6,123 days ago

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Community members are demanding the Classic Community Center be kept the way it is after information about alleged changes to the facility surfaced.
The Classic Community Center at the Andrew Jackson Houses is apparently going to be taken over by another organization, and parents are angry and concerned about the news.
According to parents, the Classic Community Center is being sold by city housing to an unknown party. They say the staff their children have grown accustomed to will be transferred to another center by the end of the month.
?We get along with the staff, the kids get along with the staff,? says Carmen Figueroa, a concerned parent. ?We don?t want nobody else to take care of our kids.?
Residents say that in addition to a staff change, programs currently offered at the center are in jeopardy because the new organization is only going to keep the center open from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., not until 10 p.m. as it currently is. They fear if the program closes earlier, the youth in the neighborhood will have nowhere else to go.
Community members plan to create a petition to deliver to their local politician in hopes of stopping the new organization from taking over the center. They say changing the center will cause more harm than it will help.
The city?s housing authority says there are going to be staff changes, but no program changes are expected to be made.