Minutes - DRAFT [taken from audio recording] Aquatics Board Wednesday February 28, 2018 Dimond Park Aquatic Center - Event Rooms 5:30pm 1) Call to Order 5:30pm Max Mertz, Chair 2) Roll Call Board members present: Max Mertz, Chair; Tom Rutecki, Vice-Chair; Ritchie Dorrier; Joe Parrish; Pat Watt; Charlie Williams Staff liaisons present: Kirk Duncan, Julie Jackson 3) Agenda Changes None 4) Public Presentation on options for future pool governance M. Mertz presents informational slides included in minutes. 5) Public Participation on Presentation [Note: Audio recording was poor quality and difficult to transcribe] Jim Betts (2648 Douglas Hwy, PO Box 34954): I am proud with what has happened in Juneau with construction of the Dimond Pool. I very proud of the fact that maintenance, the deferred maintenance that they accounted for in terms of the monies projected forward. I am disappointed that those deferred maintenance items haven t been taken care of yet. I support your continued actions on the board with your recommendations based on the new requirements. I would like to say today I hope that you gentleman and ladies please continue with your efforts. I believe that a community that is involved has the biggest investment to maintain the infrastructure and our tools structured here. I have a vested interest in the pools; my well-being is absolutely dependent upon having swimming facilities in Juneau, and I have used these facilities for the number of years that I have lived here. I would like you to consider strongly your own self-interest in terms of what you think is best. I want to thank you for your service to date and ask that the Assembly continue to maintain this board until there is an arrangement with YMCA, if that s the way to go. I want to thank you personally for all the great work and please don t forget about the Augustus Brown Pool. One last question, and that is, and you don t have to respond personally, are all of the members of this board engaged and happy with what is going on? M. Mertz: I m glad that you brought up engaging because I wanted to touch on that earlier. We said at last week s meeting and I want to say it again tonight, that AGB is very important. I think, as much as anything else, that what this board is doing is helping to keep AGB alive with five million dollars in sales tax. My kids learned to swim at AGB and a lot of people in this room learned to swim at AGB and we re invested, we re not just for the valley pool.
Sara Hannan (PO Box 240752, Douglas): I am an AGB Pool user because this pool is a long way from North Douglas. You used the figure when you talked about YMCA having seven thousand members, do you have any sense of how many visitors in the pass holders perhaps? Have you had anyone near to seven thousand? M. Mertz: I don t have those numbers. Julie do you have them off the top of your head? J. Jackson: I don t, not off the top of my head. Sorry. Sara Hannan: Do we have thousands or do we only have hundreds? J. Jackson: Between the two pools probably between 1000 and 2000. We have had a lot of recent converts to passes. M. Mertz: In the Spring of 2016, Parks and Rec implemented a POS; giving us better demographics. We can begin to see better who is using AGB with their demographics and who is using DPAC with their demographics. We have that data and can certainly give it to you. We just haven t had an opportunity to compile that data yet. Sara Hannan: I was just wondering all her charts reference visits a 130 and then YMCA has 7000 members, and I have no M. Mertz: Those are visits, that 149,000. Sara Hannan: Right, but I didn t know if that represents every GSC kid coming 7 days a week, and then twice a day on the days with no school, that s like 500 people. M. Mertz: Do you want to chime in a little bit about the 149,000? Does that include the GSC? J. Jackson: With the numbers that you have gotten, they didn t, because we weren t recording them individually. So no it didn t include GSC s visits, in the numbers you had. M. Mertz: So it does not include the high schoolers? Julie Jackson: No M. Mertz: So these are pass holders? J. Jackson: Pass holders and daily fees. M. Mertz: Yeah, paying members. Sara Hannan: My second question is, on the current board although we don t have a GSC seat, we clearly have very engaged GSC parents and faculty M. Mertz: I would say it was my vision. Sara Hannan: So if the board had designated seats, would there have been elimination of a non- GSC person? What I have concern with is to see the swim team control the pools; the swim team has a slightly different use pattern then the public, and I think the board and the management has done a very good job at balancing that. But I have a concern with a designated GSC seat if you still have 6 members who aren t the designated GSC reps, yet you re all affiliated with GSC because you re parents who already spend your time... M. Mertz: If I could just respond to that, so first of all we don t want to have one group outweigh all the other users, and right now our board doesn t allow more than two members with any sort of GSC affiliation. GSC affiliation is a current member of GSC, and you re a member of GSC if you ve got a kid in it or are a master swimmer, or you re an employee. We re limited to two right now. But what s happened, is although my background and certainly Tom s background, you know with our past parents of GSC kids, we don t have anybody that s currently associated. It s the understanding
of what s going on with them right now, and that s why we want a current GSC member on here, so we really have that input. I don t think, and I m clearly speaking for the rest of the board when I say, I don t think one member is going to outweigh the rest of the board. Sara Hannan: And my last question was if you became, if the pool community became some kind of non-profit, no longer associated with the CBJ. How does maintenance work? Do they contract with the city for maintenance? Do they hire their own private electrician to come in? Because, I taught a high school swimming program for five years, so I spent a lot of time at the pools. The maintenance guys were there a lot, moving people around, a lot of light bulbs being changed, a lot of plumbing problems to address. They seem to be on a quick call basis from Seth at the front desk, when he says we ve got toilets backing up and they re not draining; I ve never had such quick response time from a plumber in my life in this town. I think we just need to explore that more. C. Williams: We see it as the city is still going to own the facilities. We investigated the tax policies and provided all the information, depending upon which iteration. There may be some options for some cost savings by hiring our own people, but it s going to depend fully upon which of the options is chosen. If we do cost savings and still maintain the facilities, to the level expected, hiring our own would be one of the first things we need to do to try and lower costs. Essentially put together better equipment on the inside of the buildings. But the preventative maintenance we feel like, that may stay with the city; it will depend upon really what option we end up with. Sara Hannan: Thank you all for your time. Peter Metcalf (352 Distin Ave): I ve lived here all my life, from the very beginning I learned to swim at AGB. When I was a young man, I would even swim in Cope Park. Knowing how to swim even saved my life in one situation. I want to thank Kirk and Julie for the change in attitude that has happened in the last couple of years. [Inaudible] is very important to engage the public T. Rutecki: I just wanted to comment on that, especially Sara mentioned season passes; people were buying multiple passes, now we ve gone to one pass for both pools which is more convenient. Emily Ferry (836 Calhoun): Thank you for the positive changes that have been made at the pools. My son was in Iceland and their pools were the center of the community where everyone spends a lot of their time. I would like to see the Juneau pools [Inaudible]. I m trying to understand a little bit more the YMCA and the cost of the maintenance; [Inaudible] will we expect to see any savings? M. Mertz: There are several areas for savings but we ve been hesitant [Inaudible] P. Watt: One thing to be aware of [Inaudible] The city is a democracy [Inaudible]. Beth Crile (4401 Riverside Dr. B2): I am a CBJ employee. I have had pleasant opportunities [inaudible] and, you know all those 4 options [inaudible]. M. Mertz: One of the things we considered [inaudible] right now a 1/3, roughly about a 1/3 of the cost, the direct operating costs for the pool, are paid for by [inaudible] the other 2/3 is paid for by general CBJ sales tax, so if you think about adding a non-profit into that mix, the non-profit obviously cant [inaudible]. So there s two questions here, how does the non-profit know it s getting enough money from CBJ to continue to operate? The other question is how does CBJ know that it s getting the best bang for its buck? I think the best answer to that, that we can come up with, is that s [inaudible]. CBJ has given us as board members a lot of governance; they may rely on us to
make a decision, so to a larger degree [inaudible]. Here s what the budget recommendation is [inaudible]. Beth Crile: So, why contact [inaudible] so I guess what I m trying to say, is with any one of these options, there is always a possibility [inaudible] so I really can t see any of those options [inaudible]. a. Charlie Williams responds at 6:35pm C. Williams: Let me respond to that [inaudible] the only way to save money is [inaudible] as long as we follow all these city rules [inaudible] those would all change, so the impact would be strictly impact on an annual basis, as opposed to what fundraising thing [inaudible] one of the things that we can do, [inaudible] if we continue the way we are there is more uncertainty [inaudible] what can we do to make it more affordable for people to use the pool, and make it more affordable for the city to [inaudible]. Beth Crile: So what we re balancing here is [inaudible]. I don t see, unless administrative services are funded in some other way, or the Assembly [inaudible]. Which of the options has the least amount of budget pressure [inaudible]. Alan Davis (716 6 th Street): I arrived here in November of 73, and I ve been using the pool pretty much constantly since then except for when the pool was closed for the oil embargo when the city decided they couldn t afford to [inaudible] another month. I guess what I really wanna say here is, that I think allowing the board, the aquatics board, to sunset I think is our least attractive option. I think, at least maintain, I would prefer to see it as an empowered board, so they can have more autonomy and more control. I am skeptical of the option of turning it over to the YMCA, I think that once that s done, it will never go back to city and bureau. I think that once they ve done it for 10 years or whatever, the city has gotten out from under some of the financial pressure; they would never go back into assuming the management of the pool in city and bureau. I think if the board and the city wants to consider this very closely, and really evaluate this. I have a couple questions concerning the YMCA option, the rates of the pool [inaudible]. P. Watt: The budget would go to board for review, very similar to what happened [inaudible] Alan Davis: And one last question, I m wondering what kind of pass Sandra Harris has? She s getting a year of use, a year of service, from the pool for $100, I m a senior with an annual pass and I m paying more than that, I m just wondering what kind of a pass she has? J. Jackson: I will get that info for you in a few minutes. Will Muldoon (9451 Patricia Place): [inaudible] why not have more people on staff? C2 and then D2, so I guess my question is [inaudible] I get worried with time running out, do you guys have the time right now to do that? Is it feasible? I guess my second question is, do you guys have a backdoor policy for dealing with that? [inaudible] M. Mertz: At this point, no. We haven t talked specifically, [inaudible] Alan Truitt (3720 El Camino): I am a frequent user of the pools with my kid; I certainly see the value and improvements over the years [inaudible] I also think that if management approves [inaudible]. Linda Kruger (3042 Nowell): As a disclaimer I am a pool employee at the AGB downtown, so I m gonna just form my remarks around thanking the board for what you ve done, for your service, and thank you to Kirk and Julie and the staff at the AGB pool, AGB is my pool. I started going there in 1983 and was pretty much a daily lap swimmer from 1983 to 1989, and so it was my pool. I left
town and then came back in 2003 and picked up where I left off and started being a regular user again and for the last 10 or so years, I ve been a water aerobics instructor at the downtown pool, so that s my pool and I love it. And I care about, and I really appreciate what Kirk and Julie have done and all the pool staff, the pool employees, and again, I m limiting my comments to downtown, cause that s my pool, and I really appreciate what they ve done, what you ve done, coming up with the money, doing all the necessary repairs, it s such an integral part of the community both for teaching swimming to young people, and older people, and to the health and wellness of all the members of the community. So it s just important, and at some point in time repairs might be necessary and we might have to close, and I m hoping that that time can be short, and sweet, and we can try to keep it open as much as possible, because it plays a really important role in the health and wellbeing of the community. So thank you and thanks to Kirk and Julie, and all the staff. Stephanie Andrew (PO Box 240957): [inaudible] Corry Isabell (9322 Tern St.): [inaudible] Savona Kiessling (1024 Debbie Ln.): [inaudible] R. Dorrier: [inaudible] It sounds like that option is possibly a way [inaudible] I think the one thing that we ve heard so far in our research about forming a partnership with the Y, is we looked at a whole lot of different [inaudible]. The Y of Alaska representative has expressed to us that we believe, we re in the driver seat, all of us, and we have the ability to make a partnership, what we think would be the best for this community for this so that s as specific as we ve gotten. 6) Board Comments discussed next meeting 7) Adjournment 7:07pm