By Jenna Kunze
Fifteen residents defended the Haines swimming pool against seasonal closure at the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee last week.
Local swimmers expressed that the pool serves all ages, helps provide essential life-saving skills and promotes mental and physical health.
Earlier this month, assembly member Brenda Josephson suggested summer closure of the pool to re-appropriate funds to strengthen the Community Youth Development Program.
Parks and Recreation Committee chair Burl Sheldon independently conducted a cost-benefit analysis using borough data from the past three years and found that 77 percent of pool usage takes place September through April, with 23 percent of usage May through August.
In 2018, the Haines Borough spent roughly $230,000 on operating the pool and generated $43,000 in revenue from admission costs of $4.75 per swim.
A total of 11,616 swims were counted annually, which costs the borough about $16 per swim, according to borough data.
“There’s really not a significant savings of closing the pool if the pool were closed seasonally,” Sheldon concluded at the PRAC meeting on Wednesday, since pool manager RaeAnn Galasso would be retained by CYD under the proposal.
Pool utilities from last July cost about $11,000 in water and sewer, electric and fuel charges.
Josephson suggested using pool staff during the closure to support and expand the Community Youth Development program with more organized events.
“The cost for personnel would not have been reduced but the vision was to effectively engage more of our youth and young adults in organized recreational and youth development activities during the summer months,” Josephson said.
She said she believes more organized summer activities would help reduce the rates of community drug use and suicide.
Ben Bard, Community Youth Development director, spoke against pool closure.
“I think (CYD) could use some strengthening, but personally, as a director, I wouldn’t want to take away from another asset to the community just so I could up the amount of funds I have,” he said.
Former president of Haines Dolphins swim team Suzanne Vuillet-Smith said pool closures in the summertime will negatively impact children learning to swim. “If you close down in the summer, you will totally wipe out any ‘learn to swim’ programs,” she said. “That’s how my kid learned to swim, that’s how she came on the swim team.”
Resident Linda Wilmot said swimming in the pool several times a week helped her lose 29 pounds. She noted benefits of water exercise over walking outside in the winter when you can slip and fall.
Assembly member Heather Lende said the pool was where she learned how to walk again after she was hit by a truck. “I’m standing here today in large part because of the swimming pool,” she said. Lende said the current assembly has been more supportive of the pool than any assembly in recent memory.
Last year, the assembly voted to allow children under 18 to swim for free. Earlier this month, the assembly approved a $500,000 renovation project on the pool projected to take place during June, July and half of August this summer. The upgrade includes adding stainless steel gutters, replacing pool liner and filtration system and renovating the locker room.
“For you to hold a hearing and imply that there is a wish or even a whisper that this is something that the leadership in this borough would like to see happen adds a lot of stress to people who are already concerned about what’s going to come down with budget cuts,” Lende said.
Haines Dolphins swimmer and sixth-grader Lucia Chapell told advisory members that closing the pool in the summer would make it difficult for her and her teammates to train. “I plan to use the pool to train all summer, and since the pool is already going to be closed for renovations, I’m going to have to travel to places like Juneau and Whitehorse,” she said.
Swimmers suggested promoting the pool to increase use instead of closing it down. “It might be worth looking into adding instead of taking away, and seeing how CYD can add to the pool instead of taking away what they have,” Bard said. He suggested conducting a week-long clinic on safety.
Josephson said she thought the conversation Wednesday was “good and productive.”
The committee unanimously voted to provide the assembly with strong endorsement for year-long operation of the pool.