Prince George swimmers will be able to dive into the pool in the near future.
After much discussion at last night’s council meeting (July 27), city council made the decision to close the Four Seasons Leisure Pool, but reopen the Prince George Aquatic Centre on Sept. 8.
While the recommendation from city staff was to keep both pools closed, Coun. Brian Skakun pointed to the therapeutic necessity of swimming that many people in the community need and suggested keeping at least one of the pools open.
Coun. SKakun has made the motion to keep the Four Seasons closed for the remainder of 2020. A separate motion (to open up the Aquatic Centre) to follow if this passes. #CityofPG
— Hanna Petersen (@hannaepeter) July 28, 2020
Adam Davey, director of community services who prepared the report on possible facilities closures, explained that keeping the Four Seasons closed would be preferable as 90 per cent of its users come from swimming lessons that are not practical under COVID-19 restrictions.
If both pools remained closed for the remainder of the year, the city would save roughly $600,000, but that money has already been included in the city’s 2020 shortfall.
“There are some seniors for whom this is the only activity they get and during the winter months. This is going to hurt and that is significant but as we go into this vote remember that COVID is gutting us and this is not easy stuff,” said Coun. Garth Frizzell at the beginning of the debate.
The city subsidizes the cost of swimming, and Davey explained that because of COVID-19 protocols, that cost would be eight times as high as normal.
“Under COVID restrictions the per-swim subsidy rate is $56 and that assumes there is 100 per cent capacity of 40 swimmers per available swim block.”
Despite the increase in cost, however, user fees would not increase for those looking to access the pool.
Coun. Terri McConnachie noted that the report indicated if the city were to open the Aquatic Centre, the city would break-even on its aquatics budget.
“When we are talking about breaking even it’s just the aquatics hitting the net expense and not going past that. When we are talking about the overall budget gap we are talking citywide,” explained finance manager Kris Dalio.
“COVID has hit us in many ways that we don’t have a counter for.”
However, McConnachie pointed out the importance of the emotional health of citizens.
“Just because the [Aquatics people] didn’t come out in full force like the arenas people did doesn’t mean it’s not important to a lot of people. I’m thinking about the therapeutic portion of it.”
When it came down to a vote, council unanimously voted to keep the Four Seasons Pool closed, but the vote to reopen the Aquatic Centre was carried six to three.
In terms of what the reopening the Aquatic Centre will look like under COVID-19 protocols, Davey said the city already has a contingency plan in place and ready to go which includes a number of restrictions.
“These restrictions include the closure of the weight room, sauna, lazy river, water features and limit the number of bathers per pool,” said Davey.
“Only 40 bathers are allowed for each two-hour block and there is a one-hour cleaning turnover between each block. There are five blocks Monday to Friday and four on weekends totalling 33 blocks weekly.”
The amount of users this accommodates is about 1/8 of peak-demand on average.
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