There was a special council meeting on Monday to address the pool fee concerns. Residents are upset at the rising cost of the pool and want it for free, but others don't want it to be added to their taxes either. For next year, we need to look at different programming to be offered at the pool, help to increase season pass sales, find ways to get more people to utilize the pool, inquire about an early bird price, or how the passes from the library would work, and utilizing community grants. The aquafit users were the most affected as their fees went from $5 to $10. The cost of the pool operation keeps increasing and the fees we are charging are not even close to covering the daily costs. Other suggestions would be to look to the food bank to help utilize passes for low income families, or partner with WECHC for mom & tot swim.
A survey is to be created for all users of the pool, but one just for swimming lessons, and the other for the users of the pool. This will help us to determine what the needs/wants are from the users/families, and help us in making decisions for next year.
A capital budget project will be coming up in 2025/2026 which is replacing the pool liner which right now is $200,000. We should be looking into any grants that can help offset the cost for this.
This will be flagged for future agendas. Also the statistics for this year will be compiled so we have an idea of what we need for next year.