East TN Conservative

From Kingsport TN Government

I think that your readers may be interested in a quick history on the Aquatic Center.

Before I joined the BMA the board established a fund to repair the Legion Pool. Previous Boards “raided” that fund. The City tried patching the pool several times, but the pool continued to leak.

The BMA then considered starting over again with a new pool in current location. Then the board began entertaining the idea of also having an indoor pool,quickly emerged into the Aquatic Center concept.

Let’s pause - the entire BMA agreed that the current situation – leaking old pool was unacceptable. But then the differences in opinions began to emerge as the City staff provided different versions of an Aquatic Center. While ALL members requested that the City manager discuss the situation with the YMCA, it was never immediately agreed upon (as was inferred last night at the BMA business meeting) that the city would enter the type of agreement with the YMCA that we seem to be headed toward.

Last summer we had a special called session to decide 2 issues: 1) Location of the pool, and 2) Should it be co-located with the YMCA. I voted against BOTH for the following reasons.

- The Meadowview is not the ideal location for the pool. I won’t elaborate here, but I would be glad to discuss further with any citizen. I favored the Legion Pool area

- Co-locating with the YMCA gives them a tremendous competitive advantage over the other fitness center operators. In effect, the city would be subsidizing an already NON-PROFIT organization to the detriment of tax-paying enterprises in the city (Great Body Company and others).

I asked the question of Mr. Gray, the YMCA Board President, that night - what would the Y do if the city built a world-class outdoor pool at the legion area? He replied that they would go forth with their plans (an outdoor & indoor pool plus fitness center) at their site behind K-Mart. He ALSO assured us that they had the funding to do this.

I immediately proposed to my fellow members that we build the city facility at Legion (a great new outdoor pool) and let the YMCA build theirs. Please note that the citizens of Kingsport would then have two options for indoor swimming - the Dobyns-Bennett pool and the YMCA.

Not only do I believe this to be the best option, I’m even more strongly for it considering the Recession that we are now in. What’s wrong with saving tax-payer dollars.

As a side note about the DB pool. It belongs to the citizens - we simply need to get that point across to the BOE.

One other point - under the current concept the Y will only build a fitness center (no pools) right next door to the City Aquatic Center. This will save them a lot of money. I have nothing against the Y. But I’m interested in saving the City money.

Thank you.

Pat Shull, Alderman