“Name that Year” is designed to put your knowledge of Tracy and its newsmakers of the past to the test. Each week, we will publish a news item that ran in a past edition — maybe it was a major event, or a story about a Tracy resident — it’s up to you to determine in what year that particular news item hit the pages of the paper:
• The City of Tracy and the Tracy Public School District are moving ahead with a cooperative plan to improve the Veterans’ Memorial Center athletic arena.
The city council accepted a school proposal Monday night, for the school district to pay for about $200,000 worth of VMC improvements, in exchange for 12 years free use of the facility. The council had previously offered 10 years of rent-free usage, while the school board had requested 15 years of rent-free activities.
District 2904 now pays $17,500 annually to rent the VMC gym space.
In exchange for 12 years usage of the VMC athletic arena, the school district will:
• Install a new wood floor that will be large enough for two full-size basketball courts. The new floor will replace a 20-yearold vulcanized rubber floor that is badly worn.
• Replace 1950s wood bleachers on the west side of the gym with new bleachers.
• Re-paint the interior of the gym.
• Install acoustical panels.
• Pay for the labor and supplies needed to refurbish the wood floor every other year for 12 years.
In turn, the school district has requested that a leaking roof be fixed prior to the installation of the new floor Sanford Health has annonunced it will give the school dsitrict a $75,000 grant to help pay for VMC improvements.
• Last week’s answer: The year was 1996 when a ribboncutting ceremony took place for the new Walnut Station Fire Arts Center in Walnut Grove.
