WOONSOCKET POOL Letter to the Editor

 

I am deeply troubled by the continued bungling of the messaging concerning the Woonsocket pool. Perhaps it's time for me to step away. That said, it kills me to see the unending shoddy ways it's being handled. The information has not been clear or spelled out.

Why would swimmers give more money when they already pay a 60-dollar-a-month membership fee to the YMCA right now to keep swimming at area pools? What will truly sustain our pool is to acknowledge who owns it, RENAME IT, and create a business plan of how to SUSTAIN IT. We have been battered and bruised by the Pawtucket YMCA system and I will go so far as to say we were severely abused, cheated, and lied to.

We must start over to resurrect our pool, yet we are BATTLE WEARY and WORN OUT!!

Unless there is acknowledgement, compassion, sympathy, and ILLUMINATION about what happened we cannot go forward in good conscience and definitely not recruit money from people without a clear plan and promise of what is being envisioned. "Fundraiser to Save the Pool" is not enough detail or clarity.

Save the pool! Okay, whose pool is it now? Who is saving it? Where is the money going? Will they teach classes, charge a membership fee, offer scholarships? Will fundraising go on indefinitely? What is the goal? What is the plan?

 

You can't have a fundraiser without details because most people will not just give money away, especially without responsibility and clarity. We were duped by the Pawtucket YMCA. We are tired. The lack of participation in fundraisers is NOT a reflection of disinterest in the pool, it's a weariness and wariness caused by a lack of leadership and transparency.

I spoke to the founder of a local swim school and she said forming a swim school is the only way to afford keeping a pool alive.

Fine, but please do not tell me the Pawtucket YMCA will run the pool! Not after the Pawtucket Y's board of directors cut us loose and sold our facility out from under us without any warning! Then we paid them for three more months of substandard management, and against their will. They provided us with even fewer swim slots, unsupervised, apathetic life-guarding, and smelly locker rooms. The lack of leadership at the top always has an unpleasant effect on all the staff and participants.

Can we get the story clear and start there before we ask anyone for another hard-earned penny?

 

We have the most magnificent pool I have ever seen, with its clerestory of natural light. I'd love to see it thriving as a swim school with lap-swimming hours. It could be the Public Library of pools, providing the children and families of Woonsocket an affordable, safe place to learn to swim, a place for swim meets and swim team practice. We could bring back the swim aerobic classes for adults and seniors. If we make a good plan we might attract national endowments or corporate sponsorship like they have in Whitinsville Massachusetts. Check this out: https://www.whitincommunitycenter.com/ . Maybe we could arrange to make our pool one of the taxpayer amenities of being a Woonsocket resident. But we have to get the story straight and clear in order to move forward. We deserve it and the citizens deserve it.