YMCA may run township pool this summer
WEST POTTSGROVE » After years of struggling to find a stable operator for its township pool, West Pottsgrove many have a willing partner, one which has already closed one pool and has announced the closing of another.
Philadelphia Freedom Valley YMCA, which has announced plans to close its facility on North Adams Street in Pottstown next month, is looking into running West Pottsgrove’s pool this summer.
Township Manager Craig Lloyd told the township commissioners May 2 that YMCA officials had already visited the facility to look it over.
Commissioners’ President Steve Miller tried to force the issue a bit by suggesting the township give the YMCA until its next
meeting in two weeks to decide whether to take it over, but the other commissioners overruled him, saying there was no advantage to pressing the matter.
“We’ve got a nibble,” said Commissioner Pete LaRosa.
The majority also beat back a suggestion by Commissioner Matt Green that this be the pool’s last chance.
“Three years is too long to just let the property sit there,” said Green. “It’s costing us money.”
But in fact, the cost is minimal, said Lloyd.
Solar panels there more than cover the cost of the minimal electric bill when the pumps and systems are not running and “really, the only cost is to have our guys cut the grass,” said Lloyd.
If the YMCA does take over the operation of the pool, it won’t be the first time.
For two years — 2012 and 2013 — the YMCA of Pottstown took over the operation of the pool, a service for which the township paid about $27,000.
The YMCA brought its summer camp to the pool, as well as other local summer camps, as an inexpensive way to provide summer swimming opportunities for local children.
In 2014, after a change of personnel at the YMCA, the township only had to pay $10,000 for the YMCA to run the pool, but membership, and revenues, plummeted.
That year, pool membership went from 38 non-Y members to nine.
Operated since 1968 as a private, nonprofit community pool, the Colonial fell behind on its tax payments and finally fell victim to a combination of age, a slow economy and more homes with their own pools in their backyards.
The township paid $71,000 in back taxes and unpaid bills to take over the pool in 2010.
The township also put as least $250,000 into refurbishing the pool facility by the time it re-opened in August, 2011.
By 2015, the opening of the pool was questionable when a series of back-andforth votes by the commissioners eventually resulted in the hiring of Bennington Pool Services to operate the pool.
But things went south in 2016 when Bennington closed the pool in July, in the middle of a heat wave, due in part to the fact that it had even fewer members than the year before.
By February of 2017, the township had already decided not to even open the pool, because any private companies approached about taking over the operation wanted a guaranteed return, something the township was not willing provide.