Waveny Pool

Government

100 Waveny Pool Passes to Be Sold to Nonresidents This Summer

By Michael Dinan | April 29, 2014

Faced with the expensive prospect of re-plastering Waveny Pool’s surface, the volunteer municipal group that oversees the self-sustaining town facility plans to sell 100 passes to nonresidents this season in order to cover costs. Though 350 New Canaan families have signed up for passes and another 370 are expected to do so prior to the pool’s Memorial Day weekend opening, that won’t be enough to cover capital and operating costs for this year, according to the Park and Recreation Commission. “By agreement when first constructed, operations and capital costs were to be attained from pool revenues, not from the tax base,” the commission said Monday in an email to pool pass purchasers. “For several recent years, the pool operated at a loss and the capital reserve fell below requirements. Specifically, as a result of the recession after 2008, the pool saw a decline of over 200 family passes sold. Because of this, the Park and Recreation Commission and town officials have taken considerable time and effort to place the swimming pool back on a stable financial trajectory.”

What happened in 2008 with the downturn, recreation officials have said, was many New Canaanites were forced to give up memberships to private clubs in town.

Government

New Canaan Nears Decision on Selling Waveny Pool Passes to Out-of-Towners

By Michael Dinan | April 11, 2014

 

The divisive question of whether New Canaan will sell Waveny Pool family passes to out-of-towners again this summer hinges on two things, parks officials said this week: How much money is collected from passes sold to residents, and whether the plaster lining of the pool itself will hold for another season. If that major capital project at Waveny Pool must be done prior to the Memorial Day weekend opening, the facility—which is designed to be self-sustaining—would fall short of funds based on the roughly 330 passes already sold to New Canaan residents, the Park and Recreation Commission said Wednesday at its regular meeting. The commission will wait until after April break to take a look at how much money has come in to offset the cost, prior to making a decision on nonresident pass sales, commissioner Richard Kilbride said at the meeting, held at Lapham Community Center. “The thinking was that in a couple of weeks’ time, in terms of where we are in pass sales and in terms of where we are in terms of what we might need to do with this budget, that the subcommittee could do some sort of go/no-go on nonresident sales at that point,” Kilbride said. Last year, 100 passes were sold to nonresidents, raising hackles from some New Canaan users—as well as at least one online petition protesting the practice, with a comment thread that turned personal and combative.