With Littlestown Borough meeting poised to vote to decommission the public pool at their meeting tomorrow, Kathleen Ednie and Save the Littlestown Pool followers will present a business plan and ask for more time to finance their project.
The council meets in the public library’s meeting room, with a room capacity of 30 and no parking, which has frustrated some who have tried to attend meetings only to be turned away at the door. There are no current plans to find a larger venue.
On Sunday, about 50 community members met at the pool to detail their plans for the future. “Our plan is to raise a phenomenal amount of money and have this pool self-sufficient for three years,” said Ednie, which she said would be about one million dollars.” One contractor has quoted $600,000 as a price to repair the pool and an additional $100,000 per year to manage it.
For the past few years, the Hanover YMCA has managed the pool, but in November, it announced that it would not renew the contract. At the last borough meeting, Littlestown residents complained that pool fees were too high for many families, and two borough members said the YMCA had not done a very good job managing the pool.
In December, the Borough Council met to discuss the pool and voted to close it permanently. A notice was sent out in January stating that the pool would be closed. Ednie said that the notice was the community’s first indication that the Council was considering closing the facility.
Council President Craig Rosendale has met several times with Ednie to discuss possible plans to save the pool. Still, he has always maintained that the borough was not interested in having anything to do with the pool — repair, maintenance, or management. “We did not budget for it, and we are not going to ask the borough’s residents to pay higher taxes to fund it.”
Ednie said her group had never suggested raising taxes to save the pool. She hopes they can achieve their goal through fund-raising.
After Ednie is given a chance to speak during the Tuesday Council meeting, three action items are listed to (1) approve the decommissioning of the pool by a third party, (2) seek quotes, and (3) open it to a public bid if the cost exceeds $23,200.
The Littlestown Pool was built with funds donated by Dr. Howard Stonesifer and opened in June 1968 as a gift to the community. The family left a second donation of $500,000 in 1985 to maintain the pool.
During the December meeting, when the decision was made to close the pool, a report was presented to the council containing concerns regarding pool management, such as procuring staff and meeting new state regulations and child labor laws. In addition, it was reported that the pool needed significant upgrades such as pumps, repairs to tiles and plaster, equipment, and fence replacement.
Featured image caption: Lifetime Littlestown residents, sisters Ava and Cecilia Hooper, said they did not want the pool to close.
Judith Cameron Seniura is a freelance reporter. She began her journalism career in the early ‘70s and has written for newspapers, magazines, and other media in Ontario, Canada, Alaska, Michigan, Nebraska, San Antonio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
Littlestown Borough Council made the right decision to decommission the pool. The actual factors that come in to play with this decision are too numerous to elaborate upon here. If the people of Adams County want a “Community Pool” then they should equally share the financial burden to build, operate, and maintain a pool. Having that burden fall, or potentially some time in the future fall on the shoulders of the residents of Littlestown Borough is wrong. As for the idea that the pool supporters state they do not intend to have any financial burden placed upon the residents of… Read more »
Thank you Steve for your interest. We would love to hear any ideas you have, we’ve been fighting this since January. There is a meeting tonight at 6:30 in the Littlesrown Library. We’ll hopefully be looking for help with donations and fundraising if we can get the extension we’re requesting.
If there is a way to save it we should try. The kids love the pool and if it is going to close, what is going to replace it? It’s a small town with not a lot to do for kids. What can we do to help? Maybe I could find a better contractor for it. We gotta try everything possible. The pool was a gift to the community and now it’s being taken away? That doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. What are our options? Thanks for your time.
Steve Kiner