(Enlarge) The county has started charging annual $25 membership fees to use the Glenwood Community Center, in Cooksville. Some members, who during a promotion paid $5 fees for what they believed were lifetime memberships, are objecting. (Staff photo by Drew Anthony Smith)

When Carl Graziano and his wife, Sandy, signed up for memberships to the Glenwood Community Center in 2007, they thought they had struck quite a deal.

In September of that year, employees at the Cooksville center sold the Grazianos three $5 membership cards with expiration dates 92 years in the future.

But now, as the county faces continued budget shortfalls and departments scrape for funds, the Mount Airy couple is being asked to pay a $25 annual fee for each family member, which opened in 2006.

Carl Graziano said he understands the charge is minimal. Still, he has written county officials, asking the Howard County Department of Recreation and Parks to honor the previously purchased membership, which he says center staff told his family was a lifetime agreement.

"(We) signed up right when it opened," Graziano said. "At the time they were basically marketing it as a lifetime membership."

Gary Arthur, director for the county's Recreation and Parks Department, said he does not know which staff members advertised the cards that way, but there was never an official lifetime membership promotion.

The arbitrary expiration date, in this case 2099, was necessary for community center computers to print receipts, he said.

"What they received was a one-time ID pass for $5 and that got them into the center," Arthur said. "We did that as a promotion for the center because that was one of the first community centers we opened."

Cathleen Winter, who lives in Cooksville, said that in September 2008 she, too, was sold what she was told was a $5 lifetime membership. She said she wants the community center to honor that agreement.

The 2099 expiration date is misleading, she said.

"At the time I repeatedly asked about the $15 family fee for life because I could not believe it," Winter wrote in an e-mail.

Smattering of complaints

In June 2009, community center officials announced the fees would be imposed as of Sept. 28, 2009.

Of the 8,300 people with the $5 membership cards at Glenwood, three have complained about the $25 fee, Arthur said.

Another 1,200 have signed up under the new fees.

"Our intent is never to turn anybody away from the Glenwood Center that wants to participate because of economics," Arthur said.

He said the $5 membership holders will not be grandfathered into the new system, as the Grazianos and Winter requested.

Arthur's department always planned to charge a fee, but because Glenwood was the county's first community center, officials wanted to give residents a chance to test it out, he said.

"We wanted people to have the chance to explore it and see how their families were going to use it," he said.

He said there was never a defined end date for the $5 cards, and the department ran the promotion as long as they could afford to do so.

The center, which cost $10.5 million to build, cost $381,000 to operate in fiscal 2009, Arthur said.

Less than half of those costs were covered by the center's $162,000 in revenue from fees for community rooms, parties and weddings.

Arthur said he expects to generate $110,000 annually from the new $25 fee.

The North Laurel Community Center, which is on track to open next winter, will have similar fees, he said. Arthur said the new center probably will have a similar $5 promotion, which, depending on the economy, would last for about a year.

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