Chapel Hill-Carrboro and Triangle YMCAs will not merge

After a year and a half of negotiations, the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA has dismissed the possibility of a merger with the YMCA of the Triangle.

The smaller, local branch was looking into expanding its programs with the financial and administrative support of the Triangle Y.

But the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Y cited conflicting sexual-orientation discrimination policies among other reasons for staying separate.

“We were trying to get comfortable with each other before beginning to discuss a more formal relationship,” said Jennifer Trapani, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA board of directors. “But we didn’t even get that far.”

She said the decision to not move the relationship forward was mutual.

The Triangle Y had done a lot of long-range planning before conversations with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch began, and they would have had to put plans on hold to work with the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Y, Trapani said.

“They had obligations to their community, and we both realized that collaborations would take a lot of time,” she said.

And Trapani also cited concerns within the Chapel Hill-Carrboro community.

“The discrimination policy of the Triangle branch was one of the main concerns from our community, and we had to have many conversations about that,” Trapani said.

The Triangle YMCA does not include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy, whereas the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Y does.

Mia Day Burroughs, a Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board member and member of the local Y, said she is happy with the decision to stay separate.

“Our Y does a lot of good, and I am pleased that it will continue to have values and I can go there with a clear conscience,” Burroughs said.

She did not specify which Chapel Hill-Carrboro Y values she supported, but she said she liked the many programs the local branch offered.

“We have really strong youth programs that teach kids more than just physical skills,” Burroughs said. “They teach them how to be good people.”

Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton, who voiced opposition to the Triangle Y’s less inclusive non-discrimination policy, also said he is supportive of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro YMCA’s programs.

“We should all continue to highly prize the Y; it’s a great organization,” Chilton said.

He said the day could come when the values of both branches were so aligned that a merger would make sense ethically and financially.

In the meantime, Trapani said the Y branches would keep collaborating as separate organizations, and the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Y hopes to expand independently.

“As far as updating our programs, we’ll have to start fundraising, and we haven’t had to do that for the past few years,” Trapani said. “But if we do it in small increments, we should be fine.”

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