Columbus residents are having their summer fun cut short as the city’s Parks & Recreation department announced its closing of the Boxwood Recreation Center due to the city government’s staffing shortages. 

The Boxwood Rec Center provided free amenities for many Columbusites. It included a game room, a separate multi-purpose activity room, a large playing field, basketball courts, and a Children’s playground. 

The center also provided technological resources, tutorial services, and cultural programs for city residents of all ages. 

The center’s closure now deprives Columbusites of those resources.

The Columbus Consolidated Government has suffered an astronomically-high rate of city jobs going unfilled, with 16.7% of all city jobs currently vacant. While many cities across the country have experienced minor losses in city employees, Columbus has fared particularly poorly. 

The Boxwood Rec Center’s closure is one of many examples of the City of Columbus failing to provide services to its citizens due to the staffing shortage. As a result of years of poor government policy and well-intended yet naive social programs, the actions taken to solve  problems have ironically made them measurably worse. 

Violent crime  and poverty continue to rise in Columbus, as the city of only 200,000 residents endured a whopping 75 recorded homicides in 2021. While the homicide rate has decreased so far in 2022, the amount of shootings and attempted homicides has largely increased. 

Centers like the Boxwood Recreation Center often provide resources and reprieve for many. That reprieve has now been taken away. 

The Muckraker will continue to follow-up on this story and others like it as more information is released from Columbus Parks and Recreation. 

Columbus residents can voice their opinions about the city’s closure of the Boxwood Recreation Center by contacting their city council members through the city’s website here.