Pools Proponents Cautiously Pleased by City's Promise to Collaborate

With came the announcement that, despite community efforts to keep all of Dearborn’s pools open, and pools will remain closed for the 2011 season.

It was an expected blow to Save Our Pools, the group of residents that has been on the issue of raising funds and cutting costs to keep Dearborn’s eight community pools open. However, the news was tempered by an announcement by Mayor Jack O’Reilly that no demolition of either pool will occur this year.

“There’s no scheduled demolition for any of the pool properties in the budget,” he said. “(During) the discussion of next year’s budget, we’ll have a lot more information and we’ll be in a position to make that decision as part of next year’s budget.”

In the meantime, several City Council members suggested that the city get more serious about working with Save Our Pools to implement some of the many cost-saving and revenue-generating ideas the group presented at Monday night’s public hearing.

Councilman Robert Abraham suggested that SOP should obtain nonprofit status and raise funds for the pools much in the way that does for the city-owned shelter.

“Come Labor Day, don’t disappear," Abraham told SOP members Tuesday night. "Get organized in a genuine fashion in the form of a nonprofit organization … where you’re actually contributing to the control and the outcome of the activity and the assets and the program.”

But SOP members said after Tuesday’s budget adoption that they’ve been organized. The problem, in their eyes, is the city has been offering to work with them, but action has been minimal.

“We want to make sure we feel good about this relationship,” SOP co-founder Mark Lane said. “Seventy-five percent of communication is listening. We’ve communicated with them, but I don’t think they’ve been listening.

“Hopefully the last two nights have shown them and shown us that we’ll communicate better.”

SOP members said they were pleased to hear several council members questioning the differences between the city’s estimated operational costs and the numbers SOP crunched.

According to the Dearborn Recreation Department Director Greg Orner, each pool costs approximately $60,000 per year to run, including staffing, operational costs, water and electric, and building services.

But by SOP co-founder Ryan Woods’ estimates, costs are closer to under $30,000 per park for the city’s smaller pools.

Councilman David Bazzy said Tuesday he’d like the city to look into the numbers to see why there is such a discrepancy.

“There’s such a divergence (in the city’s and SOP’s pool cost budgets), I don’t know what to believe,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what–I’m going to drive around a lot more this summer and look at the pools.”

Lane said he appreciated the effort from City Council’s most newly elected member.

“I think Mr. Bazzy understands, and he wants to work with us,” Lane said. “We appreciate that–the fact that he’s going to work with the recreation department and get the real numbers, then come back to us so that we can find a solution to raise money.”

SOP member Kristyn Taylor agreed, adding that she’s hopeful that relations between her group and the city can be more functional moving forward.

“I think this can be a good, positive step for us, and if we can have some tangible commitments from the city to help us move forward, then we can know exactly what’s expected and how we can move forward,” she said. “That’s what’s been lacking this past year.”