By Donna Gordon Blankinship, Editor, JTNews
JCC President Paul Etsekson says he has been amazed at the community response to a series of financial and organizational challenges that hit the Stroum Jewish Community Center this year.
“I believe that the problems we’ve had have sort of captured the imagination of the community,” Etsekson said in an interview on Tuesday. “It’s amazing the amount of people who have stepped up and come to the rescue of the “˜J.’”
The need for rescue first came into the public light earlier this fall, when JCC representatives brought a dire financial report to one of its biggest financial supporters, the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, during a federation board retreat. Early into its fiscal year, JCC officers had discovered a $600,000 budget shortfall. On top of that problem, the organization needed to restructure $2.3 million in debt that was coming due on property adjacent to the Mercer Island facility that the JCC is buying.
Around the same time, the JCC’s long-time director, Gary Pollack, and assistant director, Rick Nelson, both announced they would be moving on to new career opportunities at the end of the calendar year.
“I expected one challenge and we ended up with three,” Etsekson said of his tenure as president of the JCC, which began about 13 months ago.
With help from community leadership, the JCC is on its way toward resolving all three issues, Etsekson says. With layoffs, budget cuts and increasing membership dues, the JCC staff expects to balance its $6 million budget for fiscal 2002, which ends June 30. “”˜J’ staff did not get raises this year. They are expected to do the same work with less tools. Our hats are off to them. It must be a labor or love, because they’re not doing it for money,” he says.
Etsekson says one of the things he is hearing on the streets of Jewish Seattle is “the “˜J’ is in trouble. We have troubles but the “˜J’ is not in trouble.” The organization has assets in excess of $20 million. It is the federation’s largest beneficiary at $450,000 a year. It takes in about $1.25 million in membership fees each year, $140,000 from the United Way, about $350,000 in fund raising, and the bulk of its budget in fees from pre-school, early childhood education, camp and other programs.
Fifteen community leaders, rallied by Stan Rosen, have stepped up to guarantee the $2.3 million loan for three years. “Some of the guarantors just put cash into the “˜J.’ It’s amazing,” Etsekson says. “The who’s who in our community is behind this.”
What they are behind is an effort involving the JCC, the Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle, the Holocaust Education Research Center and the Jewish Federation, who are all taking a look at possible future use of the land adjacent to the JCC. A task force is expected to make a preliminary report within a year, recommending whether a community campus is feasible for that site, which the JCC bought from the Department of Transportation.
The task force is meeting weekly under the leadership of Ron Liebson. They will explore zoning and permitting, shared use of facilities and the possibility of a combined fund-raising campaign spearheaded by the Jewish Federation. Theoretically, the community could need $50 million to build a shared facility for all the organizations currently involved in the task force. Not all that money would have to be cash raised in a fund drive, since two of the organizations — the federation and the JDS — both own substantial pieces of property. Etsekson says three separate fund-raising campaigns could cost 40 percent more.
“This absolutely creates the possibility of doing something huge for this community in the future,” Etsekson says. “The extra land that the JCC has is surplus to the needs of the JCC, but it is not surplus to the needs of the community.” Etsekson says the JCC could have sold the land and solved all its financial troubles, but chose instead to preserve it in the best interests of the community.
“I think that this community is crying out for a quality place where Jews can meet. From an outreach standpoint, having this campus there with the federation there is outreach in its purest form. If we are to meet the needs of this community in the 21st century, this is one of the steps we must take to accommodate growth and need,” Etsekson adds.
The JCC also is making progress on its third challenge, finding a new director. The search committee has interviewed a handful of applicants and is particularly interested in one person with a great deal of experience in building a community campus and performing the duties of a JCC executive. Etsekson says the person of interest is in his late 40s, has a strong Jewish background and has spent some of his life living in Israel. He didn’t want to get any more specific about this candidate, however, because anything can happen during an executive search.
When Pollock leaves Dec. 31, an interim director will take over the helm of the organization. Etsekson says the JCC board would like to see a permanent replacement on the job before the end of the fiscal year, “but we’re not going to compromise or rush.”
Etsekson is already looking to the future, when a new director can institute some exciting new changes at the JCC — some as small as a new paint job or a buzzer on the downstairs door.
“I am very excited about the possibilities that lie ahead, and I am very open to other people’s input and involvement in helping shape the future of the “˜J,’” Etsekson says.