Hurricane, UT Breaks Ground on New Robert Lichfield Recreation Center
Nora Ashleigh Barrie | September 23, 2023
In 1998, Utah businessman Robert Lichfield started the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools (WWASP) as an umbrella company for numerous Troubled Teen Industry programs in the United States as well as a number of third-world countries. For over twenty years, children in 49 WWASP programs around the world endured unspeakable abuse and neglect while Lichfield profited and prospered.
In 2022, Hurricane, UT mayor Nanette Billings approached Lichfield to request the use of an unassembled, prefabricated building owned by Lichfield for the city’s new recreation center.
Lichfield agreed to donate the building to the City of Hurricane and it was decided that the recreation center would be named the Robert “Bob” Lichfield Recreation Center.
Considering the vast and countless instances of horrific child abuse that occurred within WWASP programs, the Troubled Teen Industry survivor community, understandably, is outraged, appalled, and deeply hurt by the willingness of Billings and the City of Hurricane to so blatantly dismiss and devalue the traumatic experiences of WWASP survivors by demanding that Lichfield’s name be on this public building because he gifted it, saving the city millions and allowing an alternative funding source other than taxpayer dollars.
I arrived at the event location, with two other survivors, about 30 minutes before the event started. After parking in the lot available to the public, a Hurricane police officer pulled into the lot, positioning his vehicle directly behind mine, ensuring that we would not be able to leave that location until he allowed us to. One of the survivors with me got out of my car and approached the officer, still seated in his patrol SUV.
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The groundbreaking ceremony for the Robert “Bob” Litchfield Recreation Center took place in Hurricane, UT this past Tuesday (September 19, 2023). The half-hour event was led by Hurricane Mayor Nanettte Billings, the only speaker at the ceremony, despite being flanked by every member of the City Council. At least half of the 36 member Hurricane police force was also in attendance, vastly outnumbering the fifteen or so citizens present, including our small group of four survivors and one local ally.
When the idea for this recreation center was first proposed in 2019 as a general obligation bond, allowing the residents of Hurricane to vote on whether they approved of the use of taxpayer dollars to fund the planning and building of this recreation center, “76% of voters said ‘no, we don’t wanna pay for a recreation center’,” Billings stated in her speech. “The citizens wanted to have a place, they just didn’t wanna have the expense, the cost, of having it come from their tax dollars,” Billings elaborated.
Before the idea of approaching Robert Lichfield was presented, Hurricane entrepreneur and soccer coach Daniel Cox contacted Mayor Billings. He had a suggestion: build what he referred to as “sports courts” at the corners of each of the city’s 10 parks and 2 outdoor sports complexes, filling the community’s need for recreation areas, while keeping costs down. When that idea was shut down, Cox had another suggestion. Previously, he had purchased a prefabricated building from Robert Lichfield, and he thought the local businessman might have another available.
Billings recounted how she approached Lichfield to request the use of his second prefabricated building for the new recreation center, “So I contacted him, and then I contacted him again, and then I contacted him again, and then I contacted him again, and then I contacted him again, and finally, we were able to talk. And I begged, and then I pleaded, and then I got on my hands and knees, and then I said ‘pretty please’ a lot, and then I said ‘this is what we’re willing to do, would you help us?’ and he finally agreed.” Part of this agreement stated that the City of Hurricane could not scrap the building if they chose not to use it, as well as the stipulation that the project would be completed quickly.
Hurricane would have to take possession of the 15,000 square foot building and begin assembly by September 30, 2023 with a completion date set for spring of 2024.
According to Mayor Billings, this project will cost the City of Hurricane around $1 million, vastly lower than estimates given for a brand new building to be constructed. Included in this was the $10k cost of reverse engineering the building plans, because the donated structure did not come with assembly plans. In addition to the free building donated by Lichfield, local companies also offered to install the gym floors, basketball hoops, soccer goals, and more equipment free of charge. Because the majority of this project was donated to the city by various contributors, Hurricane will be spending that $1 million for the blueprints and to add bathrooms and a storage room to the recreation facility. In exchange for those donations, not only will Robert Lichfield’s name be on the building itself, all other donors will have their names carved into the floors of the two gymnasiums the space will be divided into.
In her fifteen minute speech, Billings spent more than half of that time dismissively confronting the existence of a survivor-backed petition while simultaneously invalidating and outright denying the lived experiences of survivors of WWASP and other Troubled Teen Industry programs. “I don’t know anyone that has personally done anything that they’ve... that the claims are... that they’ve um... talked about. I don’t know any of the employees that have done those things and so I don’t know anything. And I don’t know any of the allegations that have actually been to court and where someone’s won. But I will say this: I am sorry if that’s happened to anyone here in this crowd or that’s... anyone that’s online that’s watching this.” Billings further continued her diatribe of disregarding the trauma of TTI survivors, “When you’re dealing with such a tender topic as abuse, and that’s kind of where I think that this has gone, where people feel... felt like they were being abused. I’ve had two things that have come to mind: One, is a little bit of the responsibility, and I’m not saying that the parents are bad people, I’m just saying that parents sign away rights and... and that’s where this started, and so when a child gets put into a program that, I know back in the 90s, that if a kid... they were taken out of their beds, flown across the country, as if they were kidnapped, taken and... and... through a program, and I’m sure that the trauma of something like that would be very difficult.”
Billings made a weak attempt to connect with survivors of the Troubled Teen Industry by minimizing their trauma and sharing what she would have done and what she would have felt regarding a unique kind of experience that she has no understanding of or desire to understand from the viewpoint of those who have lived through those experiences. “I’ve never had that kind of experience and so I can’t say that I know exactly how they feel, and I’m sorry that that’s happened to someone, but I am gonna say that I’ve seen and met a lot of people that have been through programs and they have become, um... better and stronger. Every single thing that’s happened to me in my life that’s been terrible has made me a better person and stronger and I’m sorry that someone else has to go through something to make them better and stronger, but I’m not sorry that I’ve had to go through different things I’ve had to go through, but I’m sorry that’s happened to someone.”
Billings reiterated the need to put Lichfield’s name on this new recreation center. “This building is not in necessarily honor of Bob Lichfield, this is really honoring our community to have a recreation center, but his name is going on this building because he donated this building, and when people donate, they oftentimes get something out of it. Recognition for whatever it is they do.”
Billings concluded her speech with, “This is a historic day for our community,” before urging the members of the city council as well as the heads of all city departments involved with this project to grab their shovels and break ground on this physical representation of the denial and dismissal of the abuse countless children endured over the 25 years the World Wide Association of Schools and Programs remained in operation.
According to the Wikipedia page about the organization, “WWASPS officials report that the organization is no longer in business, and the facilities originally under it no longer associate with the name, but because of ongoing litigation, it has not been dissolved.”
