… The Simcoe-Muskoka YMCA, in an open letter to its members, indicates it has met with municipal officials and presented an option for aquatics.
It included a breakdown of costs that the local rumblings suggest would make it (gasp!) cheaper financially more efficient for the Y to operate a 25-metre pool at their Hume Street site.
Let’s see: covering Centennial Pool will cost $3.2 million, with operational costs of about $250,000. Over five years that works out to about $4.4 million in total costs to the town; in 10 years the cost is $5.7 million. new pool at the Y, in 10 years, will be about , uh, $5.7 million – based on the town giving/lending the Y the capital costs, plus the $100,000 or so the town would have given the Y for operating costs in the first four years (and not including any fundraising the Y has done for the project – that’s estimated to be around $600,000). The Y pool, at that point, would be paid for, from a town perspective, while Centennial Pool would be, uh, still being paid for in operating costs.
Moving on…
Meanwhile, a keen-eyed Underground readers stumbled across this snippet in the town’s Official Plan, Sec. 3.2.2:
To promote, on the basis of appropriate feasibility studies, the establishment of a multi-use recreational facility to replace aging facilities such as the Curling Club, the Collingwood Fitness Centre and the Centennial Pool.
Of course, we decided not to go down the road of doing a feasibility study based on, the, uh, ‘feasibility’ of doing a study… Though, I guess it could be argued that it wasn’t really a feasibility study; it was to hire a consultant to see if there were any funding opportunities out there, or whether a private partnership could be formed – a process that would have cost $40,000, for which the money was in the budget (and, based on some of cipherin’, worked out to a shocking $3.30 on my tax bill…)
See you at 4 p.m.! Will it be 50 people, or 500? Don’t forget – a round of beer is on the line!
