Response to articles and letters appearing in February and early March, 2002.
To the editor,
There is a simple way to absolutely ensure that a pool in New Milford never
becomes a burden on the town budget – it’s called Private Ownership. When I was
growing up in the Chicago suburbs, every village had a pool. They were called
swim clubs or “field clubs” and without exception they were owned by the
members. This form of ownership is like most private country clubs and is
similar to a condominium. It starts when a bunch of people get together and pool
(pun intended) their cash to form a corporation that will own the pool. The
corporation sells memberships to more people. The membership is actually stock
in the corporation that they will sell sometime down the road when they leave
the pool. Thus membership is an investment – in the pool and in your family.
Since the pool is owned by the members, the people using the pool have the
greatest incentive to keep it nice.
In such a plan, the members would need to pay sufficient annual dues to maintain
the pool, pay for a staff of managers and life guards and all the chemicals and
supplies needed to keep the pool safe and healthy. This is exactly what Friends
of the Pool and others are suggesting for a town-owned pool so I don’t see
annual expenses as a problem. Raising capital should not be a problem either if
there really is as much support for this pool as it would seem. Spread over a
sufficiently large number of families, the initial membership should be
affordable. There is a lot of talent in this town and organizational costs could
be kept down by people volunteering their time to help make this happen.
If this in some way seems elitist, keep in mind that a pool is not a limitless
resource. If it is to be an enjoyable place to cool off in the summer, it can’t
be over crowded with people. This means that annual memberships would need to be
limited even for a town-owned pool.
Any way you cut it, if the people who use the pool are to pay for the privilege,
then those same people should own it as well.
Jim Scheef