Everybody wants a year round indoor pool! Oak Parkers deserve it!
But at what cost? $40,000,000? Ouch! But we can afford it. (By “we” I mean “I”). At the cost of the Ridgeland outdoor pool? Ouch! We can’t afford it!
I’ve seen the 50 meter Ridgeland Common lanes routinely packed with six or eight swimmers per lane. Packing them into a new indoor pool less than half the size would be impossible without swimming on top of one another, bumping, cursing, etc. It can’t be done.
It belonged in the Community Recreation Center (CRC) where it was planned, but omitted, according to news reports, in order for that site to achieve energy neutrality and allow the PDOP to pin a medal on its chest — impossible with the energy needed to heat an indoor pool’s water. Solution? Put the same energy cost in some other facility! Pin a sleight of hand award next to the energy medal.
As for the referendum? I have to go back to my law-school days and a course on securities law. The SEC’s famous “Rule 10(b)5,” defines deceit and fraud to include omitting “material information necessary to make a statement not misleading.” Omit it? Deceitful. Fraudulent. The referendum omits the fact that the proposed indoor pool will replace the RC outdoor pool. Deceitful. Fraudulent.
Frank Stachyra
Oak Park
