By Alyssa, a Chippewa Falls resident, who read this letter at a May city council meeting.
I’m a wife and mother of a 7-year-old daughter named Avery who desperately wanted to be here tonight, unfortunately she is sick. She did write a few sentences about her love of the pool, which I will tack onto the end of my comments.
I am a proponent of finding a way to keep our outdoor pool functioning. But as a former newspaper reporter who values facts and numbers, I cannot allow myself to speak to you simply on emotion. I spent last week calling administrators at Eau Claire’s Fairfax Pool, Menomonie’s Wakanda Waterpark and Marshfield’s Vandehey Waters.
As echoed by all three pool administrators: Their pools do not make money. It is not a money-making venture, they said. This is a service to the community. With open waterways in their communities (and ours), an outdoor pool facility keeps the children in our communities safe. Safety was the pool administrators’ top reason for keeping their municipal pools open.
My goal in calling these pool administrators was to ask questions about their business models. To keep our pool, we need to start thinking outside of the box for solutions. When Mr. Jimenez addressed the city council on April 12, the three main challenges appeared to be the following:
- The pool’s state of disrepair
- Operational costs, which put the pool in the red each year
- And staffing fluctuation
It’s apparent that if we keep the pool, we will have to address the repair issues. Major donations will be needed. A facility maintenance plan must be created. Other pool administrators also suggested training a park employee to assess the pool’s structure on a regular basis. We suggest seeking out a second opinion on costs and a repair timeline. And why not think outside of the box and implore skilled construction students at our local technical college or willing community members to volunteer their time to install donated toilets or tear down and rebuild bathroom walls.
Operational costs are inevitable. Again, this is not a money-making venture, but I believe there are ways to have a greater impact on the bottom line, including retooling concessions, offering sponsorship opportunities in the way of advertising, offering water aerobics courses and only slightly increasing the cost of daily admission from $3 to $4 a day.
Staffing qualified lifeguards and swimming instructors has always been a challenge, but we have ideas. We have qualified lifeguard instructors teaching at Chi Hi. Let’s collaborate with our school district by asking them to train interested students to be lifeguards. Recently, Eau Claire pool administrators held a weekend lifeguard course. Fifteen people were trained, and eight applied for positions at Fairfax Pool. We need a feeder program like that to satisfy our need.
Admittedly, we’re starting from the bottom, but the only way from here is up.
And to end, this is my daughter Avery and a couple of her friends enjoying the pool. I would like to read Avery’s comments.
“Please do not close the pool. I love the pool. I go all the time in the summer. I learned how to swim at the pool. I was scared to jump in the water. The pool is where I learned to be brave.”
