WITHOUT ANY RESERVATIONS, the Peninsula Daily News recommends a “for” vote to create a metropolitan park district to save Port Angeles’ community pool.
A pool is a quality of life issue that Port Angeles can’t afford to lose.
Once closed, a pool doesn’t magically reopen a few years down the road.
It will be gone — and along with it, healthy activities in a supervised, safe environment for:
* Children who need to learn to swim.
* Young parents who want to enjoy family fun.
* Teens who join swim teams or swim with their friends.
* Seniors who swim to stay physically active.
And the cost to keep the pool open is a bargain, affordable even in these times when economic pressures weigh on all of us.
As Terry Smithton, a tough-minded businesswoman and president of the Port Angeles Business Association, said:
“For about the cost of one dinner out per year, most homeowners can help keep this important community asset in operation.”
An “against” vote in this election would be nothing but a shot in the foot.
It would be a vote against the future of this community, against the future of our young people — one more piece of bad news added to a lot of other recent bad news.
Mail-in ballots must be returned or postmarked by Tuesday.
We are repeating the editorial we published May 1 when ballots went out to voters.
It also explains the tax issues that are of concern to all residents in this important election.
John Brewer
Publisher and editor, Peninsula Daily News
WE’D WAGER MOST of our readers can swim, and that many of you learned to
swim in a community pool.
Your parents viewed learning to swim as a no-nonsense necessity — as
important and as necessary as learning to read, or being taught to
safely drive a car.
Can you imagine growing up without learning to swim . . . because your
community pool was closed?
A dedicated grassroots community group called Save the Pool has
fashioned a ballot measure with taxpayers’ interests at heart to prevent
Port Angeles’ William Shore Memorial Pool from closing.
It is now before voters in the Port Angeles School District — and it
deserves their support.
Proposition 1 requires a majority vote to create a metropolitan taxing
district (yes, it’s poorly named) that would levy an expected 15 cents
per $1,000 of valuation upon homeowners in the school district.
If voters approve this deserving measure, the owner of a $200,000 home —
the median valuation in the school district — would pay $30 a year more
in taxes.
The levy would fund a tentative, bare-bones $474,000 annual budget to
maintain and operate the facility.
The spending plan includes a reasonable and responsible annual $50,000
allotment for repairs for the pool, if needed.
We need the pool.
And let’s put one mistaken notion to rest: This measure does not serve
some so-called narrow special interest group.
Consider the pool recorded 52,000 visits in 2008, a total more than
twice the entire population of Port Angeles.
In addition to children learning to swim, it is used by seniors — some
of them disabled veterans — who want to stay physically active.
It is inexpensive recreation close to home for many families.
Schools use it for their swim teams.
The Coast Guard trains its lifesaving personnel in the pool.
Consider, too, that the Save the Pool group rallied Clallam County
commissioners and the Port Angeles City Council to pass resolutions
supporting the ballot measure. These resolutions state the levy must be
only enough to maintain and operate the pool.
Those very commissioners and council members would make up the board
that would oversee the new district.
If this measure fails, William Shore Memorial Pool will cease to exist
as of June 15.
Save the Pool organizers have scrambled hard to save this community asset.
Cash-strapped Port Angeles officials began talking about closing the
pool last summer, but waited until September to proclaim that the pool
would close unless citizens came up with a way to keep it open.
Save the Pool stepped up and devised a plan by December.
The city gave them time.
Organizers raised $64,000 from 538 contributors, including $20,000 from
Delhur Industries Inc. and $5,000 from a Ruddell family trust in Port
Angeles, to keep the pool from closing this spring.
To date, organizers have planted 400 save-the-pool yard signs, and their
numbers have grown to more than 100 dedicated volunteers — your neighbors.
We understand the law says metropolitan tax districts can set levy rates
of up to 75 cents.
Again, Save the Pool organizers anticipated some raised eyebrows.
So they worded the measure in such a way that if the park district board
in its initial meeting sets a levy rate more than a few cents over 15
cents per $1,000, that vote can be challenged in Superior Court as
undermining the voters’ will.
Finally, this isn’t just about serving only those who live in Port Angeles.
A two-day swim meet in February brought more than 400 people to the
North Olympic Peninsula.
Based on the $110 a day the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce
says tourists spend, that’s $44,000 that flowed into our area’s coffers
in 48 hours from people who would not have come if we didn’t have a
community pool.
We have no quarrel with those fed up with higher taxes.
We aren’t belittling the fact that taxes will increase by about $2.50 a
month for the owner of a median-priced home.
But this measure deserves more informed consideration than that.
Think back on where you, your family, your friends, your children,
learned to swim.
Keep the William Shore Memorial Pool.
Please vote “for” Prop. 1.
