Community pool members advocate for diving boards
Members of Beaconsfield’s network of community swimming pools are about to begin their third summer season without diving boards. So Marie Léveillé Ghanem — a mother of four now-adult “water babies” — circulated a petition, by hand and online, asking the city to commit to fixing the situation. Close to 270 signatures have been collected.
It all began in July 2016, when access to the diving boards at Heights, Beaurepaire and Windermere pools was cut off following a report by the Société de Sauvetage that stated the pools were not deep enough and did not meet current safety standards for using either one-metre or three-metre diving boards.
The regulations governing public pools were updated by the Régie du bâtiment du Québec in 2013.
Beacon Hill community pool is privately owned and was not part of the 2016 inspection.
No diving boards means diving programs are no longer offered which limits children’s participation in ALPS competitions. The ALPS organization consists of 22 community pools in the southern sector of the West Island. Children compete in swimming, synchro, water polo and diving.
Three of Ghanem’s children competed in diving and water polo for years.
“My children spent their summers at the community pool,” Ghanem said. “The community pool was their summer camp. The competitions give children a taste for (the disciplines). A lot of them go on to pursue training and competition at a higher level. I would like my tax money to be used to benefit the next generation (of swimmers.)”
The community pools are run by volunteers and rely on membership fees. Some operational costs are covered by the city. All the pools are now more than 50 years old and showing their age, but building a new pool is a costly venture.
Mayor Georges Bourelle said fixing the situation is included in the Parks and Green Spaces Master Plan which was unveiled last fall, with $10 million of the overall estimated $30 million master-plan budget earmarked for the pools. That amount will probably fall short.
“It could cost anywhere from $3.5 to $5 million per pool,” Bourelle said. “It’s costly, but we realize we are going to have to do something.”
No work is planned for this season because the mayor said a number of questions will need to be addressed:
Which pool gets fixed first? A significant number of Heights pool’s members come from Kirkland. Could a partnership with Kirkland be forged when paying for Heights pool’s work?
The pools will be built with public funds. Does this mean the pools, which offer memberships, should become public pools?
“We are going to have public consultations on the subject,” Bourelle said.