Crippling Bond Issue Based on False Premises

It’s official. Jeff Gahan and his cohort think we’re stupid. It’s time to issue a call to the mayor and the city council saying, in no uncertain terms, “We know what you’re up to. We are not fooled. Surrender now to the people of New Albany or pay the price at the ballot box in 2015.”

I’m addressing myself to just 2 of the projects approved Thursday night (Feb. 21, 2013) giving approval to the sale of property-tax backed municipal bonds in an amount as high as $19.6 million and at an interest rate of as high as 7%.

Those 2 are the outdoor pool and the creation of a greatly expanded farmer’s market complex.

Let’s get right to the numbers, remembering that I had previously proposed a far more popular and cost-effective aquatic recreation program consisting of multiple spray parks distributed across the city. Let me today add my proposal for the creation of 2 dog parks – 1 for smaller dogs and another for larger dogs.

According to the newspaper of record, the Gahan administration is proceeding with plans for a $9 million aquatic center to be located at the failed site of the Camille Wright swimming pool off W. Daisy Lane.

Their professional design consultant, The Estopinal Group (and who else would you expect them to use?) says that a new outdoor facility can be expected to have 66,000 visits each year and to generate $932.000 in revenues. TEG asserts that the operating costs of the pool will not exceed $700,000 annually. Simple arithmetic yields a net revenue stream of $232,000 each year.

Oh, but that it were true.

66,000 visits
The most compelling reason the previous parks administration abandoned the Camille Wright site was the extreme lack of demand shown by New Albany residents. Even if we assume that the new outdoor aquaplex becomes wildly popular upon opening and maintains that high attendance throughout the life of the facility, I project more like 18,000 visits. That represents 200 visitors over a 90 day period, a reasonable estimate given our climate and the expectation that the pool will only be open from Memorial Day to, perhaps, Labor Day.

But what about this wrinkle? Our local schools corporation just adopted a 12-month academic school year, otherwise known as year-round school. We’ve not experienced yet a summer in which school attendance is the norm, but ask any teacher or principal how that’s going to impact summer recreation as we knew it in the latter decades of the 20th century.

And our summer weather will have to cooperate, too. Though we’ve experienced some years of absolutely torrid temperatures and drought, it’s pretty easy to figure that a good 20 days will be washouts due to rain, storms, or the impending threat of storms. So now we have 70 days averaging 200 visitors, or 14,000 visits.

I maintain that societal norms have changed, too. No longer will parents think it prudent to just drop off their kids at the pool for a few hours or all day. No longer will most kids bike or hike out to the city limits to laze by the pool. No longer will any public facility deign to be a babysitter for unaccompanied minors. Our neighboring cities of Clarksville and Jeffersonville do not allow children under 14 to attend without an accompanying adult guardian. While 15-year-old Abby can head over to the pool, she cannot take along her 12-year-old sister unless an adult also pays for an admission.

Societal attitudes about playing out in the sun have also changed dramatically. When I was a kid, a sunburn was a sunburn and a finely crafted tan was the epitome of beauty and cool. Today we know much better. Every sunburn adds appreciably to the future expectation of skin cancers. Tanning is retrograde, left to the ignorant and the reckless. Sure, SPF factors are now available in the 3-digit range, but ask any pediatrician whether they recommend prolonged exposure to the sun. Ask any optometrist or ophthalmologist the same questiion.

And what kids find cool today is NOT the same thing people the age of Scott Blair, Pat McLaughlin, John Gonder, Bob Caesar, Dan Coffey, and Greg Phipps found to be cool. They, and we, may lament that, but we don’t live in the same world we grew up in. As I’ve said before, Mr. Gahan’s vision is at odds with modernity, not to mention with current progressive recreational facility planning. And we, by handcuffing our city treasury with a 20-year obligation, are paying for it.

$932,000 in annual revenues
Already we’ve said we don’t believe the city’s attendance estimates. But say they are correct. Do you realize that the $932,000 in annual revenue is predicated on an average admission fee of $14.12 for each of those 66,000 visitors?

This assumes that absolutely no one buys a season pass, which surely would reduce the daily revenue stroke and increase the daily admission appreciably ($18?). It also assumes no discounts for any reason. No discounts for seniors. No discounts for infants. No discounts or subsidies for low-income residents. No off-peak discounts for, say, the last 2 hours of the day – night swims. And no group discounts for day-care group visits or off-hours parties or swimming lessons.

To achieve that revenue figure per visitor, a day pass would cost upwards of $20.

Clarksville charges $6 a day. So does Jeffersonville. Already I’m wondering how many New Albany residents will pay even $6 to use the Gahan pool. But the city confidently asserts that hundreds will pay $20 or more for a day at the aquaplex.

$9 million outdoor pool
OK. Maybe it’s only $8 million. Who could possibly know? Why are we racing to issue bond debt (and encumbering the city far into the future from borrowing for other worthy purposes) for a pool for which we have no design or budget?

On the interest alone (probably $3.5 million over 20 years), we could build 6 spray parks. Operating costs for spray parks are about 6% of the costs to operate an outdoor pool. They are able to remain open much longer without adding costs. Think back to how many scorching days we’ve had in late April and May and how many unseasonably warm days we’ve endured in September and even October. Wouldn’t it be nice to catch a little heat relief without changing into swimwear, driving out to the city limits, and paying $(x) per person to soak in chlorinated water?

I’m not actually proposing we build 6 spray parks, but with that budget, we’re talking “Taj Mahal” spray parks, all paid for off what would have been the interest on a new outdoor swimming pool. And six pools corresponds quite well to the political reality that we have 6 council districts with council members hoping to bring home the “bacon.”

If pressed, I’d propose a spray park along the Greenway, either at the site of the old dump or near the riverfront amphitheater. Others could be included in existing parks or strategically placed to serve that part of the community who, for whatever reason, find dissonance in the idea of driving somewhere to engage in recreation. And with the savings gained, we could build a network of walking paths that connected each of our parks, including spray parks, and thus enhance the … that’ right … quality of life and competitiveness of New Albany as a great place to live.

Finally, these spray parks would be … wait for it … wait … free to attend. The worst that could happen is that they become overcrowded, thereby justifying the establishment of even more such spray parks.

That’s enough for today. Perhaps we’ll return to discuss the need for dog parks, for which we could pay if we don’t build an outdoor pool complex simply to satisfy someone’s edifice complex. And I’ll try to rustle up my previous arguments regarding why putting more money into the farmers’ market site is a fool’s errand.

Welcome to 2013 and let’s hope for a pragmatic future where we take care of the problems we have and look to the future instead of to the 1970s for answers.

Pragmatic View Should Trump Nostalgia

In my fight to stop the onrushing passenger train that is the Gahan Aquaplex, I do not question the good faith of the mayor or the other proponents of building a new outdoor swimming pool.

Trust me, on several other matters, I am perfectly willing to question the mayor’s good faith or lack thereof, but this is not one of them, absent any whiff of public corruption in the decision-making and contracting process.

As I do a head-count for votes on the council to proceed with what I think is a reckless plan, I see a representative body sitting around the hookah inhaling a cloud of nostalgia.

Adults of our generation (and I believe I am now older than all but 2 council members) recall with gladness many sunny days gathered with our friends around a public pool. The public pool provided socialization, relief from the heat, a place to try out personalities, and a place to plant a marker along the sexual spectrum. Oh, and it provided some jobs to the children of the well-connected.

I’m sure there’s an element of “if only” in the calculations of pool supporters. If only we had a public pool, our drug problems would be more manageable. The sheer escape from stress would promote happiness and decrease crime. If only we had a pool, people would again take pride in our city.

If only.

Pool as panacea won’t fly. I believe a public pool, if built, would serve as a monument to foolishness. I “close my eyes with holy dread.”

But here. Samuel Taylor Coleridge said it better than I ever could, though he tells the story that this poem, literally, was inspired by inhaling opium from a hookah.

KUBLA KHAN

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:

And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Fast Track is Wrong Track

Reactions to my call to slow down the race to build a new outdoor swimming pool have been encouraging, to say the least.*

On council member who was wrongly believed to have harkened to the “all aboard” call has corrected that misimpression, telling us he is withholding judgment for the time being. That, my friends, is precisely what I’m calling for.

Some smart people have provided me with additional talking points in support of my recent blog post. But then, I would consider people who support my suggestion to be smart, wouldn’t I?

And that puts a fine edge on the point of my previous post, which was amplified Monday when the News-Tribune published it as a guest column.

It is that willingness to listen to people who agree with me that I see in the Gahan administration’s push for a new pool now.

Among my personal acquaintances, N-T columnist Matt Nash has been the most vocal in insisting that New Albany should place a high priority on a new swimming pool. Nash was and is an ardent supporter of Gahan. His father, Warren, a former mayor himself, is the current mayor’s closest political advisor and sits on the all-powerful Board of Public Works and Safety.

Of course Mr. Gahan is going to listen to his political supporters – the Nashes included – but that does not mean that he or they are right.

It’s time for transparency. It’s time for discussion. Without that, I fear, as I previously stated, that we’ll awaken to a new reality before the citizenry has even begun to consider what’s best for New Albany and its residents.

The experiences of other cities are relevant here. I’ve asked the local newspaper to examine the economics of the pools in neighboring Clarksville and Jeffersonville and report on them as part of its editorial push in support of the Gahan project. They, frankly, have more time and tools to do that than I do.

I’m researching alternatives and will be reporting on that shortly, but in the meantime, here are a few bullet points which we all should be able and willing to debate.

PROPOSITION: There is no discernible demand for a new outdoor swimming pool. A key piece of evidence is the below-marginal use of the now-closed Camille Wright city pool in its last 20 years of operation.

PROPOSITION: Families today do not desire to use a community pool, but if they do, they are not willing, as taxpayers, to pay the public costs of building, maintaining, and operating such a facility.

PROPOSITION: With the advent of year-round school in the local public system, an expensive public pool facility would see even less use than the old pool did during the relevant season. A 4- to 6-week pool season would hardly justify the expense of an outdoor pool.

PROPOSITION: With an admission price of $6 a day per person and the requirement that an adult guardian accompany all minors under the age of 14, the economically disadvantaged will be unlikely to patronize the pool.

PROPOSITION: Public opinion would not rank a swimming pool as a high priority for city projects, even if the list of projects were limited to purported “quality of life” undertakings.

PROPOSITION: Spray (or splash) parks are exceedingly popular, offer affordable admission costs of from $1 to $2.50 a day, and the costs of building, maintaining, and operating them are at least an order of magnitude less costly than a traditional outdoor swimming facility.

PROPOSITION: New Albany, counter to Mr. Gahan’s suggestion, could instead build multiple spray parks, including in existing parks facilities, and provide accessibility to many more residents and visitors. Hotel tax revenues could be a primary source of funding for at least one of these parks.

Every taxpayer should examine these propositions and pick a side. If, as I suspect, most of us would endorse most or all of these propositions, then it’s incumbent upon us to make sure our representatives don’t commit resources to an outdoor swimming pool.

*The exception was an anonymous person who appears to be an ardent supporter of the mayor’s Xanadu-like “quality of life” projects, no matter what those projects might entail. This online commenter appears to believe that anyone who did not or does not praise the mayor is immediately disqualified from commenting on public issues.

Don’t Rush to Build Outdoor Swimming Pool

As a person of a decidedly communitarian bent, I’m usually one of “them people” who are first to call for public funding of projects and facilities that both benefit the public at large and whose costs can best be borne by the taxpayers as a whole. That is, usually I’m for it.

But I’m filled with dread at the thought that we’ll wake up some Tuesday or Friday morning and discover that the New Albany City Council and Mayor Jeff Gahan have put this community into debt to build an outdoor swimming pool.

The administration estimates that an outdoor water recreation facility will cost in the neighborhood of $9 million. Mayor Gahan has already asked the Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County to divert a portion of their charitable giving to help foot the costs of a swimming pool.

It appears that the city wants to float a bond of about $20 million to build an outdoor pool facility, multiple fields for the local Little League affiliate, and a soccer complex at the inner-city Binford Park.

But do the people of New Albany need, or even want, a new outdoor pool? As we blow through the second decade of the 21^st Century, is building a swimming pool a legitimate and equitable use of tax money?

One might say that if the nearby casino wants to pay for it (an unlikely prospect, but who knows?), then the city should immediately accept the money and build an outdoor swimming pool. I contend that even if a benefactor were to cover some or all of the costs, New Albany would be better served to spend that money on something other than an outdoor pool.

Those who might say this is a premature voice in opposition just don’t know how New Albany government works. Rather than persuade us, the mayor is relying on a long-past and little-contested campaign as his mandate to build a pool to replace the Camille Wright facility. I hardly think the voters saw Mr. Gahan’s election campaign as a referendum on whether we should go $20 million in debt for recreation projects, or even as a vote to sever the city parks from the joint city-county system.

And nothing says that the city council will do any more than the bare legal minimum before authorizing the issuance of municipal bonds to fund what may well be an obsolete project from day one.

Both Clarksville and Jeffersonville have outstanding outdoor aquatic centers. With the amount of money being proposed for a new pool in New Albany, the city could provide free admission at and free transportation to either of those facilities for every likely user of a new city pool—with no additional annual operating or capital costs, to boot.

A “spray park” along the riverfront or even multiple such parks scattered strategically around the city would be a better use of tax dollars. Let’s face it. In this day and age, an outdoor swimming pool is an albatross and I believe it’s a wasteful public expenditure.

It’s time to start a long public conversation about this to build a consensus on whether we need or even want a new outdoor pool in New Albany. Unless we have that, and unless people let their representatives know that they don’t want a new pool, my nightmare may become a costly reality. And for goodness sake, there’s no need to rush this decision. I don’t think a bond referendum would stand a chance of passing public muster, but a council that listens only to its own counsel might believe otherwise.

Note: I put a lot of skin into the game supporting the public investment in the YMCA and New Albany-owned indoor aquatic center. My wife and I fought for it politically and also made a significant (for us, at least) financial contribution toward its construction.