As the borough drafts our community’s budget for the coming year, I urge them to sustain support for the swimming pool. The facility serves young and old, builds life-saving skills and bolsters mental and physical health.
As a longtime swimmer in Haines, I have never seen pool usage so high. We have also met the mayor’s challenge from last budget season of beginning to secure outside funding.
The borough manager’s current plan calls for reducing the assembly’s contribution to only eight months’ operation, using potential school funds not to grow pool hours but to backfill the reduction.
Such a long closure is excessive and punitive for a facility that has proven its value in saving lives. It makes continued growth in use a hard goal to achieve, as each reopening means building momentum from scratch. A summer closure also misses out on visitor traffic, breaks rehab routines for those who use the pool therapeutically, and eliminates a valuable opportunity for enhanced youth programs and lessons.
Please let the borough know that eight or nine months of pool operation is not enough. When the facility was built 40 years ago, it was never envisioned as a money maker or even a break-even proposition. Our leaders intended that it would help save lives. It has, and that “savings” has been priceless.
Bonnie Hedrick