WCM really needs your help

Done! Anything for Kerry.

I posted in my blog a week or so ago that Seattle is considering closing several city pools. So, yeah, this kind of thing is happening all over the country. Let's face it, pools are expensive to staff and to maintain and it looks great to the city's bottom line to simply close them or eliminate positions like apparently Walnut Creek is doing. Definitely write, email, call, whatever the mayor's office and city council to show you care about these things. Don't just assume others will so you don't have to. I'm attending a public hearing after work today and hope to get my three minutes to discuss how important the pools are not only to me, but to the entire community.

Thanks Heather. I really appreciate it. :angel: OK, here's the scoop as I know it. The City of WC pays most of Kerry's salary, and half of the asst. coaches salaries (which aren't very big- I think all 3 of them don't even make up 1 FT coach). Kerry is a FT employee w/benefits. Our team, through our dues, which are about $250/year (I think- it's no more than $300 for sure), pays the rest of Kerry's salary, and half of the asst. coaches. These funds have been eliminated by the city. We will most certainly have to pick up the difference as a team. Our concern is that Kerry has 30 years in with the City and full medical. We can't pick that up. Furthermore the city is asking us to use the Aquabear model where we rent the pool for x$/month. The Aquabears do not make the city money with this pool fee ($24,000/yr), and they don't make the city money at all. On the other hand, WCM, in addition to our dues, pays a splash fee $4.50, every time we swim. We bring in over $150,000 to the city every year! That more than pays for our coaches. Our board is looking at several options: 1) save our current situation- this pool is in a perfect central location (that's why we all swim in the same pool!) 2) moving to a new location, so no more WC anything (fine with us)- there aren't any other pools centrally located- probably lose people (not the goal of USMS) 3) trying to raise funds to build our own facility- that would take corporate sponsorship and that's a whole other can of worms. I am all for #3. I think that we could do it. It would probably take 5 years but I think we could. We could have as many meets as we wanted, etc... Anyway, please e-mail and let our city council know what an amazing team Kerry has created. Believe me we've been singing his praises, but they expect that from his swimmers. They'd be hard pressed not to listen to other swimmers from across the country, or even the border (hint hint): mayor@walnut-creek.org Please, it will take you 3 minutes max, and if takes longer than that, I'll buy you a beer. :chug:

BTW, the city has $20 million in reserves. I know these are used for emergencies. Hello, dozens of city employees are losing their jobs and their medical, it doesn't get worse than that! And if it does get worse than that, $20 million ain't gonna fix it!

Good idea Jim. I'll have people look into this, too. Thanks!

BTW, the city has $20 million in reserves. I know these are used for emergencies. Hello, dozens of city employees are losing their jobs and their medical, it doesn't get worse than that! And if it does get worse than that, $20 million ain't gonna fix it! Karen, I looked at the city web site on the budget page (I've been a state budget writer, school finance director for most of the past 17 years so I get the numbers) and something does not make sense to me. I see the rec page where they are cutting about $122K in expenses, I presume that is staffing and some operating expenses you highlighted, but they project a revenue loss of about $257K from the current year, I presume that it is from the closing of the Larkey (but they claim that it will be picked up by the other pool). So where is the revenue going? or the explaination for the $250K drop. The question for the city is why would you trade a $122K in expenses for $250K in revenue?? - unless there are additional savings in another part of the budget that isn't showing on these pages like utilities which may be captured in another budget. On your team, how many members do you have paying dues?? The splash charge of $4.50 is that a per person or per practice session?? I was trying to figure out the $150K in revenue; maybe that's part of the $250K reduction in their revenue - and again why would you shutter a program that on balance makes you money or at least covers its own expenses. What would the hit be to the WCM members if you had to pick up the coaches costs? Of course it seems to me that they could use some of the reserve $20M to bridge the budget gap for the next couple of years until it things stabilize - that's a a pretty hefty reserve, not that they should just blaze it all away.

Many people are trying to figure out these numbers. Larkey Pool is a small L-shaped 25 yd pool that is only open during the summer. It doesn't make much money, and I don't see how they think that Clarke will pick up the revenue from Larkey. If Larkey closes I don't think everyone will automatically come over to Clarke (kinda far and parking in the summer is a nightmare!) Every time you go into the pool it's $4.50. So if we have 100 people swim/day (which is a little high) that's $450/day x 5 days equals $2250/week x 50 weeks is $112,500 for the year. Summer use goes WAY up for everything as you might imagine. Oh, I know, they do lessons at Larkey. That's got to be a good chunk of change they'll be missing... Anyway, thanks for your input Dave. You're right, it doesn't make sense!

Government doesn't understand logical financial arguments. You have to come up with another way to convince them, like endowing a swim school program or something "for the greater good." Explaining fiscal responsiblity to a government is like explaining physics to a gnat.

Many people are trying to figure out these numbers. Larkey Pool is a small L-shaped 25 yd pool that is only open during the summer. It doesn't make much money, and I don't see how they think that Clarke will pick up the revenue from Larkey. If Larkey closes I don't think everyone will automatically come over to Clarke (kinda far and parking in the summer is a nightmare!) Every time you go into the pool it's $4.50. So if we have 100 people swim/day (which is a little high) that's $450/day x 5 days equals $2250/week x 50 weeks is $112,500 for the year. Summer use goes WAY up for everything as you might imagine. Oh, I know, they do lessons at Larkey. That's got to be a good chunk of change they'll be missing... Anyway, thanks for your input Dave. You're right, it doesn't make sense! It's more than fair to ask the Mayor for rationale behind these decisions, and then present further information. It's quite likely that the city doesn't really understand the revenue coming in from the Masters program. I will definitely email the Mayor - cutting coaches doesn't seem like a good idea when there is so much focus on reducing obesity and increasing fitness. Tell them about the revenue and all the benefits of a successful program. It can be seen as a form of marketing for the city. --mj

If I were the mayor I'd definitely be asking why the city is paying the salary and benefits for the coach of a private organization. Shouldn't that organization being paying the coach's salary? Anyway, putting myself in the mayor's shoes that's what I'd be asking.