By Kellen Olshefski
Staff Writer
Plans for a new swimming pool at Sunset Park moved forward Nov. 18 with the Elkhorn City Council discussing the possibility of putting together a pool planning committee.
Mayor Howie Reynolds brought the idea to the council to help plans for the project continue smoothly.
“I don’t want to be willy-nilly about this and just go to a contractor and say, hey, we’ve got $3.5 million to spend, what can you do for that?” he explained.
While Reynolds said he doesn’t have specific people in mind at the time, he’d like to see a staff member, a council member, someone from the recreation department and two private citizens on the committee.
Reynolds said the committee would help the city establish specifications and work with consultants to make sure the pool can be built at the existing site to ease the burden on the council.
“If we do this at the council level every time, I think we’re just going to get bogged down,” he said.
Alderman James D’Alessandro suggested reforming the currently defunct Sunset Pool Ad Hoc Committee, to which Reynolds responded, “I would like to see like two of those people to be on this committee.”
Reynolds said he would like a staff member, such as City Administrator Sam Tapson, to oversee financial aspects, and a council member to report back to the council on progress.
Tapson said he thinks it’s a good idea as it creates a designated body to work with a consultant on design, amenities, features and other aspects of the process.
From there, Tapson said, the committee – which would bring a citizen viewpoint to the process – would be tasked with bringing recommendations back to the council.
“I just personally think it gives a good flavor to the process,” he said.
D’Alessandro said while he’s not opposed to it, it would be nice if the committee reports back to the council on regular basis.
“So it’s not like we go through a span of time and all of a sudden we get this, and there’s a recommendation, and now we’re all starting to tear it apart,” he said.
Council President Brian Olson said it’s important the council is clear on what the role of the committee will be.
“I mean, if it’s just a couple of people hanging around, it could be fighting over hot dogs and pool chairs,” he said.
As an example, Olson said, giving the committee seven people to consider and telling them to come back with three would be more productive than telling them to consider them all and give a recommendation of all seven.
“You get a bunch of citizens together and you expect them to do a job, let’s be clear about the job we’re giving them,” he said. “I have had experiences where there’s no direction and people lose momentum and clarity what they’re really supposed to do.”
The board agreed to continue looking into the committee, giving Tapson the responsibility of beginning to look into potential candidates.
As for the process for the pool in the future, Tapson first noted a misconception regarding the board’s borrowing. Tapson said the $7.5 million borrowing package that has been referenced numerous times is a number that is maximum in terms of “what-ifs,” while the $3.5 million for the pool was a place holder.
“There’s no commitment to borrowing the first dollar,” he said.
Tapson said the council never voted to spend $7.5 million, but only to prioritize $7.5 million worth of capital projects.
“We’re probably several months before you see a commitment to dollars,” he said.
Tapson said one of the first steps is to circulate the request for proposals, which he said was completed Monday afternoon.
From there, he said, the citizen-based committee would interview the consultants, assist the council by making a selection of a consultant, make a recommendation to the council to hire a consultant and negotiate a contract to move the project forward.
Tapson said the selected consultant would need to do some soil samples to determine whether or not the current site could support a new pool. From there, the city would begin looking at the preliminary design phase, selecting a final design and send the design out to bid.
“You’re looking at a year or more because by the time you get through this, you will target a June 2015 opening of the new pool,” he said.
However, Tapson said, he and council members all agree the first thing that needs to be done is determine whether or not the pool will be open in 2014.
