Council mulls pool’s fate: Panel wants more information before making its decision

Published 8:49 pm Thursday, April 30, 2015

FILE PHOTO | DAILY NEWS POOL’S FUTURE: Washington’s City Council is considering whether to shut down the city pool. Washington High School’s swim team for competitions uses the pool. Memberships help pay to operate the pool, but the revenue generated by those memberships do not cover the cost of operating the pool.

FILE PHOTO | DAILY NEWS
POOL’S FUTURE: Washington’s City Council is considering whether to shut down the city pool. Washington High School’s swim team for competitions uses the pool. Memberships help pay to operate the pool, but the revenue generated by those memberships do not cover the cost of operating the pool.

Washington’s City Council wants more information before deciding what to do with the city’s pool — including shutting it down — at the McConnell Sports Complex.

The fate of the pool, which costs the city more to operate and maintain each year than the revenue it generates, was discussed during the council’s meeting Monday.

Councilman Doug Mercer, who said the council needs to make a decision concerning the pool’s future, suggested contacting the state’s Parks and Recreation Trust Fund to determine if the city returning the $250,000 it received in PARTF funds would free the city from its contractual obligation regarding operating the pool.

City Manager Brian Alligood said he talked with John Poole, the state official who oversees PARTF, about the pool (which was built about 14 years ago).

“His comment to me was you’re under a legal contract with the state of North Carolina for 25 years. You have the taxing authority to raise taxes (to cover costs associated with the pool)… and that’s his position,” Alligood said.

Mercer contends that returning the $250,000 to the state would result in any contract conditions “going away.”

“I would go to court with that argument,” Mercer said.

Poole, according to Alligood, said that if the city were allowed to return the money, it would no longer be eligible to receive PARTF money in the future.

City Attorney Franz Holscher said he’s not aware of the conditions of the contract the city and PARTF signed years ago. Holscher said he’d have to research the matter to determine what options, if any, the city may have in regard to possibly returning the $250,000 to the state and closing the pool. He also said it’s his understanding that PARTF guidelines provide that if a PARTF-funded facility is removed, it must be replaced with a similar facility.

“Every time the state tells us, ‘You’ve got a contract,’ we go cower in the corner. It’s time for us to stand up for our rights and tell the state we’re voiding that contract by returning your money. …  The state is not all-powerful, guys. We’ve got some rights and we need to stand up for them,” Mercer said.

It’s time for the council to decide if the city is “going to stay in the pool business or are we going to get out of the pool business.”

“As far as I’m concerned, gentlemen, we ought to get out of the pool business,” he said, adding that if the pool is to be closed, the city should set a deadline for doing so and inform people who use the pool they need to look elsewhere to meet their pool needs.

Councilmen Larry Beeman, Richard Brooks and William Pitt said they want more information, including copies of the contract, before they would make a decision regarding the pool, with was paid for, in part, by money raised by a community fundraising effort spearheaded by Judy Jennette, a former council member and mayor.

Councilman Bobby Roberson said if the council were making a purely business decision regarding the pool, it would be shut down. He said it would have a hard time increasing the city’s tax rate to help pay for keeping the pool open for the 200 to 300 people who used the pool regularly.

Roberson, noting he prefers not to close the pool, said the city should explore possible alternatives to keeping the pool open, but closing the pool remains a possibility.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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