Swim Center is One Focus for City Council

The Walnut Creek City Council on Tuesday strides into the final lap of a long spring of preparation of a biennial budget.



The council meets in public session at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 1666 N. Main St. That follows a scheduled 5:30 p.m. closed session to discuss negotiations with city bargaining units.

On the council's agenda is consideration of cost savings in aquatics. The council had asked for staff to prepare projections of savings from a reduction of hours at Clarke Swim Center at Heather Farm Park. Such a plan, if the council goes forward with it, will provoke pushback from user groups.

In a June 4 letter to the City Council (attached to this article), the Walnut Creek Aquabears offer to work with city officials to find alternatives to a winter pool closure to reduce the city's subsidy of pool operations.

For 35 years, Clarke Pool has been the workout home for the Aquabears' 200 youth swimmers.

"We believe a winter closure of Clarke Pool would be the first step toward eventual total closure and abandonment of Clarke Pool," wrote coach Mike Heaney in the letter to the City Council.

Attachment 1 of the staff report for Tuesday's council meeting addresses council requests for cost recovery of various arts, recreation and community services. It states that a recommendation to close Clarke Swim Center on Sundays from October through March, estimated in the budget presented to council on May 15, would save the city about $10,000 in temporary staff hours. In January, some 70 to 100 swimmers used Clarke each Sunday.

Extrapolating further to a full wintertime closure of Clarke, Attachment 1 projects expenditure savings of $401,251 would be offset by a loss of revenue of $217,483 for a net estimated savings of $183,768.

The aquatics decisions are one example of many priority calls the council will make in its quest to hammer together a budget by June 19.

The proposed budget for fiscal year 2012-13 appropriates funds, by category, in these rounded numbers:

• Administrative Services     $6.0 million.
• Arts, Recreation and Community Services    $12.9 million.
• Community Development     $4.3 million.
• General Government    $3.6 million.
• Police     $22.0 million.
• Public Services     $15.2 million.