FORECAST GRIM: Another Summer Without A Town Pool Is Probable
Residents frustrated by pace of Glen Mary pool rebuild and lack of regular updates
BAR HARBOR––During the December 18 meeting of the Parks and Recreation Committee, the committee reviewed the lease for the Glen Mary Park. The property is leased from the owners of the property, the Village Improvement Association (VIA), and renewing the lease, which expires in 2024, is vital to rebuilding the town’s pool.
Prior to discussion about the lease, member Erin Cough stepped out from behind the councilor’s dais and took a seat in the audience because of a conflict of interest that had been established at the September 18 Parks and Recreation Committee meeting. Both Cough and member Jeff Dobbs are directors of the VIA. Dobbs was absent from Monday’s meeting.
Public Works Director Bethany Leavitt said that there have been a couple of adjustments made to the lease based upon feedback by the Parks and Recreation Committee at its September 18 meeting and also based upon feedback from the VIA. The town’s attorney then reviewed the document after the adjustments.
Some of the major issues that the committee said had to be corrected from the last meeting were clarifying what the town will be responsible for as far as pool operation and maintenance and vegetation management.
Leavitt said that under the newly written lease, the VIA will ensure renovations allow the wading pool to be operated in compliance with state rules and regulations. The VIA is heading up the renovations and the town is responsible for ensuring that the pool is operated in compliance once open and operable. Basically, the VIA is the builder of the pool and the town is the operator of the pool.
The VIA has not seen the rewritten lease yet, Leavitt said.
Chair John Kelly told Leavitt that he was concerned about the very specific commitments in the lease as far as the time frame for the renovations of the pool and all of the work that still needs to be done before construction can even start.
He also asked if there was any way to extend the lease from ten years to 15 or 20 years?
“Ten years will go past very fast and we can always, by mutual agreement, amend the lease,” Kelly said. He then said, it will be interesting to see if the VIA will amend the lease so the town doesn’t find itself in the same situation (in the future) that it is now.
Leavitt said that she will ask to see if this is possible for both the town and the VIA.
Kelly also said that there is no mention in the lease of the committees involvement in the pools design, but there is mention of the committees involvement in the vegetation management plan.
He is concerned that not having the committee’s involvement in the pool’s design in the lease will cut out public involvement in the pool’s design.
COSTS AND QUESTIONS
New member and YMCA Representative Ann Tikkanen asked if there was a cost share for the town and Kelly responded that according to the lease, the VIA is covering all of the costs of the pool construction.
Tikkanen said, “So it’s built and then the town owns the cost of maintaining it?”
Kelly answered yes and then Leavitt apologized for not making that clear in the lease and said that she would rework it so that it is clearer.
Kelly started to move on to the next agenda item and an audience member spoke up and asked if she could make a comment. Kelly apologized and told her that she could.
Dee Karnofsky said, “I come to these meetings, but I still have no sense of what is happening with Glen Mary. And now it will be three years this summer. Could you just give me a sense of what is happening?”
Kelly said that he would give her the “30,000-foot view” and explained that the town wants to renovate the entire wading pool and the general concept is to improve and keep the function as it is now, not a splash park or anything very different from what it is now, and continuing to keep winter activities occurring there. He explained that there is a lot in the lease about that and in order to be able to do the renovations, the lease needed to be put back in place because the current lease is coming to an end. The new lease will explain the relationship better and clean up some other grey areas that existed in the prior lease.
Kelly then asked Leavitt if she had any comment on where they currently were in that process and Leavitt said, “I don’t feel comfortable saying where we are at the moment, but I will check in with the VIA.”
Kelly said that he thinks it is important for townspeople to know what is going on and that he recently got an email from someone who expressed that they don’t think the town is doing anything about the pool. The silence doesn’t mean that nothing is happening, but because it is a government project it is going to take a long time, he said.
Kelly said that it probably won’t be operational this summer. “It would be highly surprising to have this all done and put into place to get done by July.”
Karnofsky asked, “Will the citizens, the public, have any say or any input into the design or is the design already done?” She asked if the end of the public input had already occurred.
Kelly said that the final engineering and design has not been done and the public has had opportunities for input. That is how they know there won’t be a splashpad at the site, he said.
Karnofsky stressed that it is important for the public to know what is happening and would appreciate regular updates.
According to Kelly, at the end of every Parks and Recreation Committee meeting, Leavitt gives a public works update and Glen Mary is always on the list of updates if there is something new to report out.
“I will say is that what I hear tonight is that we are probably looking at another summer without Glen Mary,” Karnofsky said. “That would be my guess.”
“That is not the committee’s perspective, that is the chair’s best guess,” Kelly said. “I think it’s better not to expect it than for the town to appear to make promises or create expectations and then have it not happen.”
Karnofsky said, “I agree with that, again, having regular information along the way makes us more ready for that.”
Kelly said that while the Parks and Recreation Committee has always been the conduit for that information, people can always take it upon themselves to email questions to the town manager, Leavitt, a town councilor, or even himself.
Ellen Grover asked if notes after the meetings are available to the public.
Kelly explained that the notes would be the meeting minutes.
Leavitt said that there was a period of time when the minutes were not posted in the agenda center, but they are all being posted now. However, there is a time lag between the meetings and the posting of the minutes because the minutes are not posted into the agenda center until they have been voted on and approved by the committee at the meeting following the meeting when the minutes were written.
Grover asked if a management plan for the forested part of the park was going to be included in the lease and if the VIA was going to be responsible for the management plan. “It’s been 20 years since we last did it.”
Leavitt said that the VIA has agreed to having a Vegetation Management Plan (VMP) but that the implementation of the plan is the town’s responsibility.
“As far as the pool, am I understanding it right that the VIA is going to design the pool without any input from the town?” Grover asked.
“Well, that wasn’t the intent so I think the answer to that is we probably have to make some adjustments (in the new lease),” Leavitt said.
Grover said, “I do think it would be helpful, in some way, for you to publicize that it is an ongoing project, we get questions about it all the time.”
Kelly said that he thinks it is every citizen’s responsibility, if they want to get information, they can get most information just by a call or an email.
Grover said that they get a lot of non-answers when they reach out.
Kelly responded that if they are getting a non-answer, it is probably because there is not a clear answer to the questions.
If you would like to catch up on the progress of the Glen Mary pool project since the pool was originally shut down in 2022 you can read all of the related Bar Harbor Story articles linked below.