August 24, 2006

By Diane Chiddister

At the Aug. 21 meeting of Yellow Springs Village Council, Council members denied a request from users of the Gaunt Park pool to keep the pool open on a reduced schedule for two more weeks this summer. During a sometimes heated discussion, Council members cited budget constraints as the reason the pool could not stay open.

The pool closed for the season on Saturday, Aug. 19, as originally scheduled.

About 15 villagers attended the meeting in support of the pool. Some had attempted throughout the summer to find ways to keep the pool open, including offering their own services as lifeguards, according to Ali Thomas, who spoke as a member of a pool support committee after the meeting. Pool supporters at the meeting requested that the Village keep the pool open about five hours a day for two weeks with a reduced staff, at a cost of about $2,200 per week, or about half of the usual cost.

“In terms of the percentage of the Village budget, the cost of the pool for two weeks is infinitesimal,” said Thomas, who presented to Council a petition signed by about 150 villagers who asked for the pool to remain open.

However, several Council members said they could not put more money into the pool due to current Village financial problems. Keeping the pool open two more weeks would cost the Village at least $10,000, according to Council President Jocelyn Hardman, who said that “we’re keeping services open that we can’t afford. Last year we spent $700,000 that we don’t have. You’re asking us to lose $10,000 that we don’t have.”

Several who attended the meeting asked exactly how much the pool costs the Village per week, but there were no clear figures given. Village Manager Eric Swansen suggested that since the pool staff charges $140 per hour for private use, that that figure should be assumed to be the cost of the pool. Swansen also said that because the Village had planned for the Aug. 19 closing, it had not ordered necessary chemicals for extended pool use, and that the pool was already being drained.

Other Council members stated that they see the pool as a valuable community resource, but that they could not approve the extra money.

“I don’t see how keeping the pool open a week longer shows that we care,” said Karen Wintrow, who added that Council, in not doing so, is “supporting the decision our staff made.”

Some villagers who attended the meeting said they believed that Council and Swansen did not appreciate the pool’s significance to the community.

“The pool has a long history. It was part of a citizens’ initiative many years ago so that children could learn to swim and citizens could use it,” Rubin Battino said. “It would be useful if the manager and Council would educate themselves on that history before cavalierly choosing pavement over people in setting budget priorities.”

Council announced in the spring that it would close the pool Aug. 19, two weeks before Labor Day Weekend, as part of cost-cutting measures initiated to address an almost $1 million deficit in the Village budget. Council voted at its last meeting to put on the November ballot a $8.36 mill increase in property taxes to address the deficit. At that meeting, Swansen stated the levy revenues would be used equally to fund state-mandated services, including road maintenance, and non-mandated human services, such as the pool and parks.

In previous budget discussions, Swansen presented several budget scenarios which indicated that if the Village did not have sufficient revenues, the pool and other non-mandated services might be the first services cut. That discussion led to concern among many villagers that Council planned to favor road maintenance projects over human services, such as the pool.

The issue of whether or not the pool will be funded, or whether the pool season will be extended, “has become something bigger than the pool,” Council member Judith Hempfling said, adding that the group had actually made the request to the Village to keep the pool open weeks ago but that Council members had not been aware of it. “We could have come up with creative solutions to keep the pool open,” she said.

Hempfling proposed that Council offer to fund the pool for two weeks more at a cost of about $4,000 if the pool group members would work with Village staff to keep costs low. Group members said they were willing to do so, but other Council members did not second Hempfling’s proposal.

Overall, Hempfling said, if Council members funded an extended use of the pool, they would be reassuring villagers that their concerns about the value of human services were being heard.

“We need to address the undercurrent that Council is not listening to the community,” she said.

The News will report additional Council business in next week’s paper.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com