Committee Wants to Try to Keep Pool Open

It's safe to say that the Memorial Park and Pool Committee wants to do what it can to make sure the borough's much-maligned pool remains open for many years to come.

The committee, which is charged with making recommendations to the Borough Council regarding improvements to the Memorial Park fields and pool, met last night to discuss the pool's plight. And in general, they said they wanted to find a way to keep it running.

"The playground should be done nicely," said committee chairman Gerard Malanga, referring to proposed improvements to some of the park's facilities. "But the pool should also be done nicely, and that should be the legacy of this committee."

Committee members said it would be impossible, however, to make an informed recommendation on the matter without full knowledge of the situation. Members said they had been told after a Borough Council meeting April 26 that their mandate was to figure out a way to close the pool.

Now, they said, after residents spoke out against the pool's potential closure at a Borough Council meeting last week, the committee was being told to consider keeping it open.

"We're always kind of dealing with the unknown," committee member Thomas Fazio said. "We're being asked to make decisions without understanding any of this stuff."

One problem is that there is no dedicated funding stream for the pool. There is a $480,000 fund set aside for improvements to Memorial Park, and the Borough Council would have to pass a resolution that would allow that money to be used for the pool. There is also an $800,000 open space fund, which committee members said could potentially be tapped for these purposes, and there is also potential close to $200,000 worth of money available from in a fund set aside for improvements to Shepard Kollock Park.

But it is unclear whether that funding will be available for the pool, but Malanga said he hoped some of the open space money could be used for these purposes.

"I'm sure that you can be creative and say that this is open space we need to make useful and better for our community," he said.

Ideally, a new pool would be on one story—right now, a kiddie pool is below the larger pool, rendering it difficult for families to bring multiple children there. It would also feature screens that would allow for greater privacy for those using the facility.

All of that would be done to make the pool more attractive, especially since, as committee members pointed out, a recent survey of borough residents indicated they might join the pool if it were nicer. The pool has suffered from lack of membership in recent years.

Improvements would be made to the existing fields, and parking spaces could be added to the area as well.

Borough Engineer Vince DeNave said if those improvements were made, the total project could end up costing close to $600,000—about $100,000 more than the $480,000 fund would allow for.

But there are also the other potential revenue sources available, and committee members said the borough could potentially spend some of that money up front before outsourcing the pool to a private group, such as the Friends of the Park Pool Chatham Borough, which has started a Facebook group and an online petition in support of keeping the pool open.

The Borough Council has said it wants to make a decision on the pool by July 12. But committee members said they hoped the council would listen to what it had to say.

"The last thing anyone wants to do is shut it down," committee member Tony Britt said.