Following advice of voters, aldermen vote 4-2 to move ahead with new facility for Sunset Park
By Kellen Olshefski
Staff Writer
At its Committee of the Whole meeting Monday night, the Elkhorn City Council, in a 4-2 vote, officially commited to a new swimming facility at Sunset Park.
Council President Brian Olson chaired the meeting due to the absence of Elkhorn Mayor Howie Reynolds. Aldermen Olson, Gary Payson, James D’Alessandro and Hoss Rehberg voted in favor of including the project in the city’s capital improvement plan. Aldermen Scott McClory and James Boardman voted in opposition.
McClory opened discussion by offering up a motion to bring the topic to a vote at the board’s next council meeting. Presuming the council would pursue the project based upon the advisory referendum, City Administrator Sam Tapson noted it’s important to begin looking at the next step in moving forward.
Tapson said the first step is to actually take a step back and begin by looking at whether or not the board will retrofit the current pool to be Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant so it will be open for the 2014 season or not.
“It’s a very interim step, but it keeps the pool open for one more year while you’re in the process of getting ready and bidding a new pool,” he said.
At this point, Tapson said, there is a need to begin taking legitimate proposals from design firms to provide design services up to and including a geo-technical evaluation of the site to determine whether or not the city can build the new facility on the existing site.
“I just think if we were to solicit proposals from design firms and get moving fairly quickly you could put somebody on board in the next couple of months and get design proposals for various types of pools,” he said.
Tapson said he’s not sure how the board would determine how much to spend on the new facility out of the $3.5 million available from the referendum until they get to the design phase.
What will it cost?
Olson, who was on the ad hoc committee for the pool, said sending out minimum requirements at benchmark costs, such as $1.5 million, $2-2.5 million, proposals would come back quickly and give the board direction on whether or not to open the pool in 2014.
“You’d have a general idea of where the pool could go, what you’re going to spend, and you can decide if you want to open in 2014,” he said.
According to Olson, the city would be looking at a general operating cost of $65,000 to $75,000 per year with an additional $7,000 to $10,000 for an ADA-lift if the existing pool was open in 2014.
“Do we really want to invest that money when we know we’re going to lose one year from a pool if it moves forward?” he asked.
Tapson said if the council was to hire a consultant in the next 30-45 days, the council would have time to make a decision on 2014. He continued, saying a consultant would lay out a schedule of tasks, deliverables and different options.
“That’s the approach we need to be taking right now,” he said.
“I’ve looked at some proposals from other states and that’s the typical way in which pool projects unfold … not unlike or dissimilar to what we do with the police department or what we do with other major development projects, get the design people in here.”
McClory withdrew his motion, and Olson made a motion to move forward with putting Sunset Pool on the capital improvement list. Olson’s motion was seconded by D’Alessandro. The motion carried.
A second motion was made by D’Alessandro to direct Tapson to begin soliciting proposals for design services. The motion carried unanimously.
Boardman, who voted in opposition of the pool, said with $18 million worth of infrastructure projects which need to be done in the near future and only being able to borrow $7.5 million, putting nearly half of that into a swimming pool “less than five percent of the people in town use,” is a waste of money.
“It’s not something I wanted to rush into because there’s too many other projects to be done,” he said.
Boardman also noted the $10 million water treatment plant project the city has undertaken.
“I’m not saying we don’t need a pool, we have other alternatives, although it shouldn’t be a top priority,” he said.
“If you do infrastructure, the streets, at least 75 percent of the people are going to use them … I just can’t see it in this economy spending that kind of money. If we can get a pool done for $1.5 million, then I might go with that.”
Moving forward
Olson said the ad hoc committee he sat on was told they would lose a summer with the pool and he said if it’s going to happen either way, it’d be nice to keep the project moving.
“You know, get it done and get the new pool up and active,” he said.
Olson said where the city will go from here is dependent on proposals and designs.
“There’s a lot of variables I just think the fist step of commitment from the city body was a big step forward,” he said.
In reference to last week’s referendum on the matter, Olson said he was pleased with the way the community came out and voted.
“They’re very smart, they’re very active in the community and they helped assist in making a decision,” he said.
“I think it’s progress, listening to the voters is important and they assisted us in making a decision that was a community decision.”
In an interview earlier on Monday, Robert Slauson, who also served on the ad hoc committee with Olson, said he thought it would be a shame if a single alderman was to vote against the pool.
“What’s the point of having the referendum if they’re not going to act upon the results,” he said.
“They’re job is to represent their constituents and I think they just told them what they wanted. So there job is to set their opinions aside and do their jobs … if they aren’t going to do that, they don’t need to be on council.”
Slauson, who was one of a handful of people behind the Sunset Pool Referendum Facebook Page, said based upon a post last week asking people what they’d like to see at the new facility, chairs, shade and slides have been some of the most predominant answers. Other suggestions included an indoor facility, a splash pad/kiddie pool and even a high dive.
McClory was unavailable for comment after Monday’s meeting.
