Tonight, a critical vote will be cast at the Red Dragon Canoe Club, our little local boat club. The survival of the club at its current location -- a block and a half from our home -- is at stake, if not the survival of the club itself.
I'll take a photo of the club house and attach it later. It is a Second Empire structure built probably in the 1860s. I've mentioned it and its prior owners, the Shipmans, in other blogs.
The problems facing the club are financial and physical. Last year, the club's real estate taxes on the house and its six acres increased by several thousand dollars even as the number of members was in continual decline. There are 35 active memberships now compred with 65 in 1994 when Monica and I joined the club. We simply couldn't afford the higher taxes without raising membership dues prohibitively.
The physical problems are also financial. The building needs a new roof and a thorough painting. At a minimum, those items will cost at least $50,000.
Tonight, the members will be asked to vote to approve the creation of a non-profit corporation to facilitate the repair and restoration of the club house, which is listed on the state and federal Registers of Historic Places.
The non-profit, as a charity, would be able to apply for various grants that are available only to non-profits. While in this economy those grants are ever more difficult to obtain, if you don't have a non-profit corporation on your side, you can't even apply.
But we have some members who think they will lose something -- some as yet undefined thing -- if we were to create and run our own non-profit. They are not interested in facts. Their minds are made up.
We don't know how many share that revulsion to our plans. I hope they are few and their arguments are unpersuasive.
The Red Dragon's property is a wonderful anchor to our very nice neighborhood. It could be a benefit well beyond the borders of that neighborhood. It is the only place along the Delaware River in this town where the public has any chance of coming close to the resource of the river, its ecosystem, its international shipping, its sailing and fishing.
In the right hands, the non-profit could help draw more and more individuals to experience and appreciate the wonder of a big river.