LAKEPORT– The city of Lakeport discussed their leadership in the maintenance of the Lakeport public pool at the Tuesday meeting. The topic came up as they tried to cut funding from the 2007-08 budget to curb overspending.
The troubles stem from the fact that a new contract the city has to pay costs to operate the pool has not cycled a full year. The city needs to experience a full year of operating in order to know costs and anticipate how much money is needed. It will be a full year of operations in May 2008. The council estimates the pool costs about $100,000 per year for bare bones operation?the amount it would take to “keep it from going green,” as councilman Bob Rumfelt said.
Lakeport has a 20-year contract to care for the pool, and would like to share costs with Clear Lake High School as well as the Channel Cats swim team, both are frequent users of the pool?ideally, the city wants each to pay one-third the operating costs.
Doug Grider, Public Works Superintendent said if it comes down to it he will ask the school and Channel Cats to cough up more money?they have already received $32,000 from the high school and swim team. The council noted that they use the pool for the majority of the year whereas the city only uses it during the summer months. They also discussed the fact that the county should help pay for something county residents use, citing the fact that the city of Lakeport pays for many county entities that benefit Lakeport residents.
“I don”t understand why the county wasn”t interested in participating. They should,” Mayor Roy Parmentier said.
Grider implored the council not to cut any funds from the pool. “I”m already trying to come up with money that I don”t have in the budget, so there isn”t anywhere else to chop with the pool,” Grider said.
The council decided it would not cut further funds from the pool, but noted that if the money falls short of actual operating costs, they may have to put up a “closed” sign in the summer.
Councilman Rumfelt advised against closing the pool for any length of time in the summer because the much sought after lifeguards are mostly students and expect a full summer”s worth of employment. The city spent $10,000 on lifeguards this past summer.
“We”re looking at doing private parties and adult swim to generate revenue and offset that, but we don”t know if they will because they”re brand new programs, some of these costs we don”t know, they”re just best guess estimates,” Grider said.
They considered briefly raising the costs of admittance, but decided against it. “They pay $10 per day to use the pool at Konocti, but they have food, a bar and entertainment?look at what this pool has?it doesn”t even have a vending machine. I”m surprised people go there at all,” Rumfelt said.
As the discussion concluded without the problem at hand being solved, a member of the audience addressed the council with his suggestion.
“I have an excellent idea about how to make money for the pool, I will meet with Doug in two weeks,” said former councilman Bill Knoll.
As he walked out of the room, some handwriting on the notebook he carried was visible, it said: “Lakeport Volunteer Program.” He could not be reached Thursday to determine whether or not this was in fact his idea for solving the pool funding dilemma.
Contact Elizabeth Wilson at ewilson@record-bee.com
