An uphill battle for Drews Center

They’ve chosen their battles carefully.

With a membership that hovers around 80 to 100 people, the San Carlos Park Civic Association has learned to be selective when it chooses its beefs with county officials.

When youth crime spurted up throughout San Carlos Park, it was the civic association that pleaded with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office for more deputies.

The community was granted two officers in April.

When the 19 miles of canals that run through the community became bogged with debris, the civic group rallied for a referendum that would bring in more money to pay for maintenance of the waterways.

The item will be included on the November ballot.

But it is a fight for the 20-year-old community center on Lee Road that has proved the toughest tug-of-war to date for the civic group that raised the money to build the Karl Drews Center in the early 1980s.

The struggle to continue community programs at the center largely has been uphill for the small civic group that has spent the past year appealing the county’s decision to convert the Karl Drews Center into a special needs facility.

Photo by TRISTAN SPINSKI, Daily News

Darby Mortenson, left, 8, dances with Taylor Nolan, 8, after lunch at the Karl J. Drews Summer Camp in San Carlos Park on Tuesday afternoon. While most of the activities, including summer camp, will move to new facilities in Estero in late August or early September, Lee County Parks and Recreation has agreed to keep the after school programs at the Karl J. Drews Center, as well as the annual pancake breakfast and Christmas dinner.

“That’s all we’ve got is that community center,” said longtime resident Rhea Bogner, a past president of the civic association.

The civic group, which will meet tonight at the Karl Drews Center to discuss sexual predators living in their community, has lobbied successfully in the past to pave roads, improve sewer systems and build a community swimming pool.

But the group faced a brick wall when it came to appealing the county’s decision to move community programs from the Karl Drews Center to a new $12 million park in Estero that is expected to open in August or September.

Until now.

Last week, Lee County Parks and Recreation Director John Yarbrough told the Lee County Board of Commissioners he would approach local nonprofit organizations that would allow a small number of after-school programs to remain at the Karl Drews House, a one-floor home that sits adjacent to the Karl Drews Center.

Deputy Parks and Recreation Director Barbara Manzo already has spoken with the local chapter of the Boys & Girls Club, Yarbrough said.

Only a small number of kids are expected to take advantage of the programs at the Karl Drews House, said Yarbrough, who expects most San Carlos Park families to take advantage of the new 55-acre park in Estero that features walking and biking paths, two sizable lakes, eight shade shelters and a 41,600-square-foot recreation building designed to accommodate pageants, festivals, concerts and parades.

“I think once families see the new facility, that’s where they’ll want to be,” he said.

While the promise to keep programs alive at Karl Drews is a small victory for the civic association that has been part of San Carlos Park since 1965, it’s also a feat to which they’re proud to own up, and county commissioners also have agreed to put into writing that the civic association can use the center for meetings and annual Christmas dinners.

“I think they’re bending a little because they’re feeling pressure,” said association President Mark Fedigan. “I don’t think it’s from the goodness of their hearts.”

Fedigan said he continues to fight the decision to move community programs from San Carlos Park, a region that has grown enough in recent years to warrant its own community center, Fedigan said. “Why parks and rec doesn’t think there’s enough growth to keep programs here is a mystery to us,” he said.

The San Carlos Park Civic Association meets tonight at 7:30 at the Karl Drews Center at 18412 Lee Road. For more information about the civic association, go to www.sancarlospark.org.