He has been director for 22 of the building’s 23 years. More kids use the facility now (up to 2,300 members) than there were people living in Arlington (2,000) when it first opened downtown in 1974.

Thanks to funding from the state approved recently, the club will get a new look, which will include a gym, teen center, technology center, community hall and upgrades everywhere else.

The club upgrade is part of the $3.83 million approved for the Stilly Valley Youth Project. Also as part of that project, the nearby baseball fields will be upgraded, including two new tournament-quality Little League fields and artificial turf on two existing fields.

Kinney said the idea is to put four fields where there are now three by having stands in the center, with the fields looking like a cloverleaf around it. Cost of the fields would be $742,000.

“It will use the space better,” he said.

Kinney said the club raised quite a bit of the $1.5 million needed for the upgrade the last four years.

“But when Oso hit, we took a couple of steps backward, and rightfully so,” he said as community donations needed to go to more-urgent needs.

Kinney said he still has the same two pool tables and two foosball tables since when he started, although re-felting has been done, along with other repairs.

“We’ve patched things together,” he said, adding the phone system was bought used back when the building opened.

Lighting is poor in the gym. And the floor keeps getting darker and darker as it is re-finished each year. To make it look new again will cost $50,000.

The small club with so many kids is a scheduling nightmare for Kinney. During basketball season, he has two games going on for eight hours. He runs a summer camp, but it’s at President’s Elementary.

“We had it here before, and it was chaos,” he said, adding with the new facility it could return.

Kinney said the city’s Family Resource Center, which was developed after Oso so people could go one place to seek help, also could be part of the facility, in the northwest corner.

He said more people and groups would like to use the facility, especially on Sundays, but it sometimes isn’t possible for security reasons. With the new facility and a new entrance, that problem would be solved.

Kinney said one small t-ball field would be lost in the expansion, but the fields used for soccer, flag football and baseball would not be touched.

Both Arlington projects could be done by fall of 2016.

Another $1 million has been set aside for the Whitehorse Trail, a 27-mile-long corridor between Arlington and Darrington. The budget includes $592,000 for the skate park and other work at Old School Park in Darrington.

Snohomish County Councilman Ken Klein said, “This project was truly a community effort.”

Darrington Mayor Dan Rankin said, “These additions to our communities will be a huge benefit for not only our youth, but all the residents and visitors throughout the Stilly Valley.”

Tolbert said the projects will “help the Stillaguamish Valley move closer to full recovery from the devastating SR530 landslide.”