Voters to Help Determine Pool's Future in November

The Chatham Borough Council will ask voters to weigh in on whether they want to support the continued operation of the Memorial Park municipal pool.

The council decided at a Monday meeting that voters will be presented with a referendum on the matter on November's ballot. Residents will be asked whether they favor using tax revenues to pay for renovations to the pool, which has been deteriorating for years.

Council members said they feel they need to get a firm sense of where the community stands on the matter. Renovations recommended by the Memorial Park and Pool Committee, which has been working on the issue, would run about $387,000, and council members said they want to know whether the public supports raising taxes so the project can be funded.

"I think they should have a voice," Council President James Collander said. "I think we should hear what the people in town think we should do."

A fund of about $430,000 will be used to pay for improvements to the Memorial Park field. That money was always intended to be used for park renovations, which will likely cost about $400,000.

The Memorial Park and Pool Committee had previously recommended the Borough Council find other areas from which it could pull money to pay for the pool project. But council members made it clear at Monday's meeting they would likely not be able to do so.

The committee had suggested the borough pull some money from its open space fund, which currently contains about $592,000. But council members said that fund will be reduced to $27,110 by 2021 because of debt service the borough owes.

Borough council members also said they are not comfortable taking money from a fund intended for Shepard Kollock Park improvements, saying the $433,000 left there will mostly be used for that park (there will likely be about $58,000 left in the fund once the Shepard Kollock project is complete).

Essentially, borough council members said, there is no money left for the pool. Because of that, they said they felt the referendum—which would be non-binding—was the best way to go.

Councilman James Lonergan said he was concerned there was not enough interest in town to keep the pool open, although he said he would ideally like to keep it running.

But he said that on a typical Sunday, only about 60 people show up to the pool. He also said he called around to area pools in places like Millburn and New Providence and said he was told normally about 35 to 40 percent of many towns' populations are members of their local pool.

In Chatham Borough, he said, that number is closer to 3 percent.

"You look at that and say, 'My God, that's not a lot of people,'" Lonergan said.

Borough council members were generally in agreement on the matter, except for Councilman Joseph Marts, who said he felt the pool needed to remain open partially for safety reasons. He referred to a recent tragedy in Shreveport, La., where six teens drowned in the Red River while trying to save one another.

The pool, he said, is a safe place for the community's children to learn how to swim.

"I, for one, would like to see us keep the existing pool and figure out a way we're going to enhance the funding," he said.

Several residents came to speak in favor of keeping the pool as well. Dave Andreasen said it was unfair for there to be a voter referendum on the pool improvements but not on the park renovations.

He also said he felt there has not been very much research done on field usage, and said the council had not done its homework on the matter.

"It just seems terribly irresponsible to act that capriciously and arbitrarily," he said. He received an ovation as he stepped down from the microphone.

Sandy Roos, who has been a dogged supporter of keeping the pool open, also received an ovation after she said she felt the community has proved it wants the pool to remain.

The council's actions, she said, indicate that it wants to close the pool, no matter what. She said she collected 651 signatures from people who want to keep it open.

"Again, (that's) not important to the council," she said. "And I ask you why."

In the end, however, the council chose to establish the referendum.

A question will be presented to voters in November that reads: "Shall the Borough of Chatham construct improvements to the municipal pool located at Memorial Park at a cost not to exceed $387,000, by increasing local taxes to pay for such improvements, and continue to use general tax revenues to pay any operating costs for the pool not covered by pool memberships?" (You can hear the full question, as well as an interpretive statement attached, by watching a video of Mayor Nelson Vaughan reading it aloud at the meeting at right.)

No final decision will be reached solely based on the referendum results. But if improvements to the pool are not made, council members said, the pool will be eliminated and removed from the park.