Testing thewaters

Charlottetown’s parks and recreation department looking at cost of swimming at Simmons pool

The chairman of Charlottetown’s parks and recreation committee wants the city to look at eliminating the fee to swim at Simmons pool.

Coun. Mitchell Tweel brought the issue up during a recent parks and recreation committee meeting.

At present, staff members with the department are looking at what the impact of cutting the fee would do to the department’s budget.

“Simmons pool is one of the City of Charlottetown’s best kept secrets. It is not as utilized as the Victoria Park pool, and the Victoria Park pool is free and there are lineups,’’ Tweel said. “Victoria Park also has the splash pad which is also free.’’

Victoria Park had new playground equipment installed this year, and Tweel notes there is tremendous pressure on the park’s amenities.

He lists parking as a big issue, saying that it is at a standstill.

“Vehicles have nowhere to park. Parking has been eliminated on Queen Elizabeth Drive. Parking is taking place in the cycling lanes on Brighton Road and this has created an extremely dangerous, volatile situation.’’

Tweel said free swimming at Simmons would eliminate the pressure at the Victoria Park pool and at the park itself.

Currently, Simmons charges $2 per swimmer for the day. Swimmers are stamped so they can come and go all day. Parents just watching their children from the sidelines are not charged a fee.

The parks and recreation chairman “Simmons pool is one of the City of Charlottetown’s best kept secrets. It is not as utilized as the Victoria Park pool, and the Victoria Park pool is free and there are lineups. added that more children would learn how to swim if it were free.

“It creates a real incentive to health and wellness and for all demographics to become healthier.’’

Tweel said if it’s free to swim at Victoria Park it should be free to do so just up North River Road, adding that doing so might even create new programming at Simmons.

He added that the Simmons pool has a greater capacity and offers lap swimming and diving boards. In addition, the adjacent field could serve as a skating rink in the winter.

Tweel also suggested opening the Simmons pool earlier in the season to match Victoria Park.

There is a process for changing fees. It has to be supported by the committee before moving on to finance for support and then it has to be forwarded to council for its consideration.

Right now, the issue is still at the committee level. The biggest issue is that it would have to be part of the budget process, which, at this point, would need to happen for the 2017 budget review.