Yuma mayor speaks on future of the Boys and Girls Club

Community donors and Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls spoke on the impacts the Salvation Army had following their decision to drop the Boys and Girls Club affiliation.

“We don’t feel like the actions taken by the Salvation Army honor the spirit, the intent of the discussions, the negotiations, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU),” said Mayor Nicholls.

Salvation Army will no longer be associated with the affiliation beginning in January 2019. This decision has brought community donors like Tom Kelly who donated $25,000 dissatisfied.

“From the very beginning, this project was to refurbished and expand our Boys and Girls Club, and that’s what was told to all of our donors no matter how small or large the donation was. I’m personally very disappointed by the fact that the Salvation Army is not following through and I hope this gets resolved, so we can keep our Boys and Girls Club,” said Kelly, Capital Campaign Chairman of Boys and Girls Club.

Mayor Nicholls said that the city will take action on two things to ensure the future of the Boys and Girls Club and it will begin with a lawsuit.

“The lawsuit would ask the facility to be returned to the city so we can find someone else to run the program. Included in that lawsuit is a motion that will prevent a sale of property to somebody else,” said Mayor Nicholls.

And the second action has to do with the zoning and the use of the facility.

“The conditional usage of the permit specifies the use of parking. The side of the facility does not have the parking normally need this type of use,” said Nicholls.

Mayor Nicholls said that the lawsuit will be filed as early as next week.

As reported back in October, the charitable organization will instead be launching the Red Shield Community Center. News 11 reached out to the Salvation Army for a statement, but they did not want to comment on the matter.