The Selma City Council is expected to vote tonight whether or not to extend its contract with the Walker – Johnson Family Center, also known as the YMCA of Selma and Dallas County.

Under the terms of the contract, which expired Jan. 31 after an initial period of three years, a $2 per night lodging fee was added to hotel rooms with $1.50 designated to help pay down debt on the YMCA, with the remaining 50 cents designated for the former Brown YMCA, in hopes the fund would reach a level where the facility could be renovated and put into use again.

While the YMCA has grown its membership and expanded programs, the main reason the fee was needed — to help pay down debt — still exists. YMCA chairman Ray Thomas said the nonprofit has approximately $2 million in debt still owed.

Selma has a beautiful YMCA, one of the finest in the Southeast, but that came at a cost, and was built just before the country’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Due to the collapsing economy, many of the pledges counted on to help construct the $6 million facility could not be honored. It’s not that people didn’t want to pay what they had promised, they couldn’t because the money was no longer there.

The Selma YMCA is a pillar of the community and has been for a long time. The Selma YMCA was established in 1858, making it the oldest in Alabama and one of the oldest in America.

Selma’s YMCA is one of the top selling points for the community, especially for people and businesses that might consider choosing Selma – Dallas County to call home.

Our city has some of the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the nation. Amid these epidemics, the YMCA gives people an established option to improve their health and well-being, and do so in a first-class, well-run facility that is the envy of many other communities our size.

The YMCA is also for everyone. It truly serves all of Selma. This diversity is reflected by its membership. The Y reaches out to underserved children and families by providing thousands of dollars in scholarships each year that cover the costs of membership.

The city council should be commended for stepping up to the plate to help save the YMCA. Without their decisive action three years ago, it’s almost a certainty Selma wouldn’t have a Y today. The facility was close to closing, and, unfortunately, the economic conditions that existed in 2013 haven’t changed much.

The truth is the YMCA still has debt that it has to repay to keep its doors open, and its future remains in jeopardy without being able to receive the proceeds from the lodging fee, which currently accounts for 11 percent of the total revenue the facility receives to serve our community.

Certainly there are many, many other nonprofit organizations in our community that serve a great need, but imagine what our community would be like with no YMCA, an institution that has served the people of Selma and Dallas County for 158 years. Who, and what, organization has the track record our YMCA does that would fill the void should our YMCA go into receivership, and be able to do it in the manner and scope of our YMCA?

The council’s decision to allow the lodging fee to continue for the YMCA won’t entirely resolve the facility’s debt issue, but it will help placate the financial institutions that hold the note on the building, thus allowing the facility to continue serving our community.

It’s for these reasons we urge the members of the council to vote in favor of extending the lodging fee another three years, under the same terms, thus continuing to allow families in Selma – Dallas County a first-class facility to help achieve their physical and spiritual goals.