Residents from the town and MD gathered at the Town of Bonnyville council chambers to discuss the state of the town swimming pool, which resulted in the creation of a citizens committee.
Around 15 people stayed back after the annual budget open house last Tuesday night to discuss the outdated swimming pool, which is scheduled to shut down for two months for grouting in 2016.
Residents pitched council the idea of creating a citizens committee to fundraise and lobby the private sector for investment.
“The committee is good in the sense that we can get a scope around what we want, where we're going to get our funding from and we can get interested individuals together to move forward,” said Sheena Oman, an organizer. “It's a large capital project so both the town and the committee would want to see support from the community in general.”
Council estimates the construction of a new pool will cost $30 million, which is too large a sum for the town to pay on its own. Grouting the pool is supposed to extend its lifespan by 15 to 17 years, but the 35-year-old pool's best days are behind it.
Council was receptive to idea of residents forming a citizens committee and promised to place some councillors on the committee for negotiations with public and private investors in the future.
“When we start looking and lobbying for the provincial government and the federal government for funds, we have an entity that we can draw upon, it's not just town council waiving their arms saying we need funding,” said Mayor Gene Sobolewski.
Kim Barrie, a MD resident involved with the Bonnyville Synchronized Swimming Club, told council that the water temperature in the pool can vary widely from day to day and that the town needs to improve communicating pool timings to residents.
“I think council was over the top receptive to our concerns and the ability just to come to this meeting to them to listen to our concerns was huge.”
The meeting went ahead due to a last minute decision by Sobolewski, who noticed that a number of people were confusing the budget open house with a discussion about the future of the pool. As a consequence, council decided to hold a discussion solely about the pool after presenting the budget to residents.
“It's really good to finally have the town interested in committing council members and people to the committee to make it a little more serious so that when we're going back to the business community or the general community saying we need investment, at least we have the council behind us saying ‘Yes we're interested in this to' and we're not just barking up a tree,” Oman said.
With the support of the MD community development fund, the town currently spends around $500,000 a year on the pool and gets $150,000 in revenue. It currently averages around 67 users a day from across Bonnyville and the MD.
“I think it's positive to see people coming out, if anything I'd actually encourage more people to come out,” said Andrew Bibo, a Bonnyville resident that attended both the open house and the pool meeting.
Oman encourages residents concerned with the pool to speak to their councilors. Anyone interested in joining the committee can email [email protected] for more information.
