City council has just tried to trap a group
of local volunteers into buying the R.G. Dow Pool.
By voting to sell the pool to a group of
volunteers for just $1, councillors want to dump the
responsibility and, of course, the costs of running a city pool
on the group.
City council wants the group to form a
not-for-profit corporation, incur substantial legal,
accounting, marketing, operational and capital costs as well as
shoulder huge liability insurance costs just to run one city
facility.
This is all council will accept. They have
never met with the Dow Pool Lifesavers to hear what the group
is willing to do to keep the pool open.
Councillors forget that swimming pools are
very specialized facilities with a narrow range of usage. How
can a privately owned pool compete with the other city owned
subsidized pools? The answer is it can't.
What the Dow Pool Lifesavers want is a
partnership with the city. Volunteers doing what they're good
at -getting people interested in using the pool and in
fundraising to help with capital costs and the city doing what
it is good at-operating the pool.
I hope everyone remembers that council did
not consult for one second with one citizen before deciding at
a budget meeting to close this excellent facility. Instead of
working with the volunteer group, it cunningly combined
the
Dow Pool and Falconbridge Arena (which has a
buyer), into one motion and voted to 'sell' the two
facilities.
All councillors want is to appear that
they've done something positive. In reality they've taken their
usual easy way out. What a cheap confidence trick!
Terry Kett, Lively
Editor's Note: Terry Kett, former mayor of the Town of
Walden, is running for Ward 1 councillor in the upcoming
November municipal election.