Florence Aquatic Center Gets “One-Season Experiment” to Stay Open

The Florence city council decided last week to keep its Aquatic Center, at least temporarily, instead of demolishing it.

The center has been a point of contention over the past couple years, shuttering during the first year of the pandemic, and, unlike most other municipal pools in the region, again in the second year.

City officials later argued that the center was too expensive to maintain and not used enough to justify the expense.

On Tuesday night, Councilman Mel Carroll made a motion to amend the current city budget to include funding the center. Councilwoman Dr. Julie Metzger Aubuchon seconded the motion.

“Obviously the Aquatic Center is a situation that is not working well for us, it costs us a lot of money,” said Carroll. “We have spotty use of it from time to time. At the same time, it does provide a service for our community. I’d like to try another year, and see what we can do to increase the cost of admission, and things like that, have price adjustments. Also see what we can do to get more of the community in there, and see if we can make this thing a go.”

He qualified his statement by emphasizing that this is not a long-term motion, he wants just a year to see if efforts can turn the pool around.

Aubuchon agreed with the short time frame, and said the city has to be sensitive to the costs which will increase the budget.

Chief Financial Officer Linda Chapman said that the cost of the Aquatic Center will straddle two budgets, affecting the current one, and the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1. 

Chapman said the city has to approve approximately $610,000, based on inflation, and the costs provided by the city’s pool caretaker contractor, Swimsafe, which told the city that the price will increase about 30 percent. 

Revenues could offset part of that amount. 

Mayor Diane Whalen said there is no money currently in the budget for the pool.

Councilman David A. Osborne said he was concerned that the city would not get the 77 employees needed to staff the pool for the 10 weeks that it would be open.  

Carroll said that in that case the city would do what any other business is doing with this lack of employees, and perhaps reduce services or cut hours of operation. 

Chemicals needed to treat the pool were also said to be in short supply.

“This is a one-season, if you will, experiment,” Carroll said. “We are going to see what we can do to get revenues up and expenses down, and still make it a viable resource for our kids. We put a lot of money in that pool at one time when we built it and then maintained it. So that’s my thought.”

Councilman J. Kelly Huff emphasized that this would only be for one year, and wanted to make sure that people know that if the city can’t get adequate staffing it will have to close parts of the pool, and said that those circumstances were on top of the 30 percent increase. 

When it came time to vote, Huff and Councilwoman Patricia Wingo voted against it while Carroll, Aubuchon, and members Gary Winn and David Osbourne voted for it.

The plan to keep the pool open delays future plans for the site which were previously announced as a new four-acre year-round park.

A survey seeking input on the pool’s fate saw a nearly direct split, with half of the respondents wanting to keep the pool and the other half hoping for something else.

The survey also showed that 60 percent of residents admitted that they had only used the pool fewer than five times since 2004, while 16 percent said that they used the pool 25 times or more since it opened.

-Patricia A. Scheyer, LINK nky contributor