An Olympic gold medallist and the city’s budget rarely have anything in common.
That a debate over city funding of in-school pools drew the attention of hometown hero and swimming champion Penny Oleksiak has both elevated and complicated a community fight, they say, to “save” their pool.
On Tuesday, executive committee approved a budget that would relocate programming from three Toronto District School Board locations in East York and North York to other city facilities.
Councillor Mary-Margaret McMahon, who represents Ward 34 (Beaches-East York) where the pool at Duke of Connaught Public School is located, moved an unsuccessful motion to reverse the programming decision for that pool.
The councillor said she hopes council backs her motion when it meets next week to finalize the budget.
“We’ll live to fight another day at council,” McMahon said Wednesday.
When her community recently rallied to oppose the loss of programming at the Duke pool, it attracted a January tweet from Oleksiak that quickly caused a splash: “It’s important to teach kids how to swim. It saves lives and is a good physical activity,” she wrote to her 56,000 followers with the tag: “saveSHpool.”
That received a prompt reply from Mayor John Tory himself: “Gold medal message received, @OleksiakPenny. I’ve asked Budget Chief Gary Crawford to find a way to save these pools.”
But are the pools at risk of closing?
The city has an agreement to use of 29 of 65 indoor pools operated by the TDSB outside of school hours — a deal that expires this year.
While the city uses the pool for 58 per cent of the available time, the agreement set out that the city cover 100 per cent of the operating costs of the pools — at an estimated average of $200,000 per pool per year, according to a briefing note from city staff to the city’s budget committee.
Staff say that since 2007, the city has relocated programs from 11 pools. None of those pools has closed.
The newly proposed change is not considered a budget cut, because the city plans to move programming from all three pools to nearby facilities that are less than three kilometres away.
Two of the school pools — the Duke of Connaught pool and Don Mills Collegiate Institute — are among the least used pools under the city agreement, according to city staff. The third, at York Memorial Secondary School, has better usage but is a block from a new recreation centre opening this year.
The alternative facilities, staff outlined, have more than the needed capacity to accommodate the existing registrations for city programs at the three school pools.
Staff said the move will save the city a net $261,000 in leasing costs this year.
“It is expected that the TDSB will continue to operate these three pools,” a city briefing note says.
When McMahon’s bid to keep city programming specifically at Duke’s pool came to a vote at executive committee on Tuesday, Tory voted against it.
In an open letter to Oleksiak posted Wednesday night, Tory outlined what staff had reported about pool usage, saying he was assured programming would be maintained while allowing the city “to better invest the funds we presently pay the school board to rent their pools.”
“It will be entirely up to the school board and its budget process to keep these pools open,” he wrote.
TDSB trustee for Ward 15 (Toronto-Danforth) Jennifer Story said the board is “disappointed” in the proposed changes.
“We came to the table years ago with this agreement understanding that we were agreeing on shared use, that we were agreeing on maintaining pools as hubs,” she said. “The city hasn’t made an explicit declaration of decision that that’s no longer their priority.”
Last year the city removed funding from three other pools. The board said in a statement on their website that they found one-time funding to maintain operations.
A request for proposal for leases at those pools went out two days before Christmas, but it is unclear how many interested parties responded.
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