With the buzz surrounding the potential closure of the Edmonton City Centre Airport these last few weeks, another issue has fallen by the wayside. I’m talking about the proposed closure of Scona Pool. The city cannot allow this to happen.
One of the things that major cities tend to pride themselves on is the community feeling in certain neighbourhoods. For the most part, Edmonton lacks those elements because of the way the city is designed, and the fact that our transit system renders it next to ipossible to get anywhere in a relatively short time. It is difficult in Edmonton to really feel at home in a neighbourhood because not all neighbourhoods are designed the same way.
We don’t really have an Edmonton version of Kitsilano (in Vancouver) or Queens (in New York). Instead we have a city that is sprawling to the point of absurdity, and the slow death of anything small or intensely local. In many parts of the city outside of the downtown core and the Old Strathcona neighbourhood, it is difficult, if not impossible, to find a place that allows for the strengthening of community bonds to the point that you’d find in a small town.
For many families in southwest Edmonton, Scona Pool IS that place.
Part of the problem with the Scona Pool is that the City now has to pay to maintain the facility itself, and pay the wages set out in the bargaining agreement between the City and CUPE Local 30. With wages starting at $17.16 per hour and increasing to $23.02 per hour, it is little wonder that the pool can operate at all, let alone with a surplus.
The hours that Scona Pool is open do not allow for adequate use of the facility, or adequate cost-recovery. It is open to the public for a total of 15.5 hours per week. The major user group for the facility is Strathcona High School, and for most of what they use, they pay $10.50 per hour under the Joint Use Agreement between the City of Edmonton and the Edmonton Public and Catholic School Boards.
I could be wrong, but a school booking the pool for even 3 hours a day at $10.50 per hour (for a total cost of $31.50 per day) cannot even begin to make up for the wage of the lifeguard on duty. Even if the lifeguard was being paid the minimum salary, they would still be paid a total of $51.48, or $20 more than the cost of the rental. The truth is that most daytime lifeguards are not just starting out, and will be at the top of the pay scale, leaving that daytime lifeguard at Scona Pool with $69.06 in their pockets, and the facility with an almost $40 shortfall.
This does not make financial sense. Other facilities are being forced to trim their budgets by up to 20% for the upcoming year, but Edmonton’s City Council is willing to spend $122,000 to keep the facility open, and another $90,000 to assess the building. That is over $200,000 which could be used to keep other facilities open for longer, or to hire more instructing or lifeguarding staff to cover the holes in various schedules.
It does make sense to close down the pool; this is undeniable. But City Council is not willing to take that step just yet. Why? Because the City recognizes Scona Pool’s importance to the community, and will do what it can to keep the facility open.
The pool has become more than just a facility. Families have been using Scona Pool for over 50 years; children have been taught to swim there, and a local swimming dynasty was born out of that environment. While I don’t think that this is the only reason the pool should stay open, I believe that to foster both competition and active living, it’s important for students at Strathcona High School to have access to the pool. I also believe that it is important to keep the pool open to provide kids with somewhere to do during the summer where they won’t be getting into trouble.
What the City of Edmonton, and specifically the Community Services department, needs to do is make Scona Pool work. This will involve being open for more than 15 hours a week. This will, undoubtedly, cost money, but the benefit in the long term will far outweigh the costs.
The facility is in serious need of renovations. But in the long run, the community needs the pool much more than the city needs to worry about an airport downtown. The closure of a secondary airport in a city never destroyed people’s sense of community like the closure of a swimming pool will.