05/02/2023
Romney Pool Update:
Good afternoon, Romney community. The Town is aware that the recent requirement to close the Romney Pool for the season has (understandably) hit a lot of our community members hard. The Romney Pool is the only public recreation area of its kind in the County and it means a lot to our community. While we understand that this news has some members of our community upset, we’ve come to realize that the majority of frustration we’ve encountered through our conversations with citizens the last few weeks comes from a lack of understanding about the background information which led to the decision to close the pool and the efforts that are currently underway to see the facility renovated.
The Town accepts responsibility for not doing a better job of getting this information out to the public. We ask for your patience in this regard as we’re not a large City and do not have a public relations team; but we will do our best to keep the public more informed in matters such as this and we wanted to provide some background information on the pool as part of that effort.
To start, it’s important to realize that the Romney pool is over 60 years old, and was built with volunteer labor. The primary significance of this is that the facility is limited by designs and technologies that were available to our community members more than half a century ago, and that many of the fixtures and structural components of the pool itself are now decades beyond their designed lifespan and in need of full replacement.
The newest component of the pool facility, the pool house, was constructed approximately 20 years ago. While this facility serves as an adequate locker room and equipment storage area, it provides no space for children to shelter during thunderstorms or engage in other activities (games, dining, events).
The pool facility is owned and managed by the Town of Romney Board of Parks and Recreation, which is a separate entity from the Town of Romney, the Hampshire County Commission, and the Hampshire County Parks and Rec. The pool is funded entirely by three distinct funding streams – $1.50 of the user fee for Town of Romney residents, funds raised during operation (entrance fees, concessions, etc.), and donations.
The Town of Romney Board of Parks and Recreation, an all-volunteer board, has been steadfast in their commitment to providing a low cost and accessible recreation space to the children of our community. These community volunteers have sacrificed their time year after year to help keep this facility operational, and worked with limited resources available to them. Every year, these volunteers come together to help clean the pool and facility and perform maintenance to get the facility ready for the season; these volunteers perform these services out of love of their community and necessity, as the available pool funds are not adequate to pay for hired services.
The financial trouble with the pool is multifaceted. To start, since the pool is largely funded by Town of Romney user fees, this means that the largest part of pool funding comes only from Town of Romney residents. When we collected data on pool usage, we found that approximately 90% of the pool’s users were not Romney residents. While the Town is more than happy to provide access to recreation services to the larger community, this does present a bit of a financial hardship for the Romney Parks and Rec and some complications regarding financial planning. It is no surprise that many Town residents struggle financially. With only 1,708 citizens living in Romney, many of whom live with difficult financial situations, the option of simply raising parks and rec user fees is not as straightforward as one might think.
The financial situation is further complicated by the fact that the 20-year-old pool house was constructed under a loan, rather than grant funding or other funding source. The significance of this is that for the last 20 years, nearly all of the funds raised by the Town’s service fees have been spent on loan payments for the (aging) pool house. This leaves only a shoe-string budget with which the Town Parks and Rec Board has been able to keep the pool operational. Because the facility is so old, it has regular maintenance issues that further cut into the limited funds that are left over after the monthly loan payment is made. For instance, the current kiddie pool on site is no longer functional at all and needs full replacement.
Needless to say, the numerous challenges that the pool facility faces means that we need to come up with a long-term plan for how to bring the pool back to life, keep it affordable for local residents, and make it financially sustainable. While the information above may seem grim, it is not new to the Town or the Town Parks and Rec Board. Refurbishment of the pool has been set as a priority of the Town since 2017, when the Town actively started searching for grant funding for a pool restoration project. Because all the funding sources found from that time required a 1:1 match, the Town was not able to move forward with any of those funding opportunities. In the spring of 2022, the Town started exploring additional funding avenues to upgrade the facility, and identified a low-match program to which it intended to apply. In October of 2022, the Town authorized the application of a planning grant for the pool, which was submitted to the CDBG program (via WV CAD) in February 2023 (the annual deadline for this grant opportunity).
The ultimate goal of the pool renovation project is to plan and construct a modern pool and recreation facility that our community can be proud of for years to come. We hope that an updated facility will include a new zero-entry pool (which is both handicap accessible and suitable for toddlers), a splash pad, shaded seating, and upgraded pool maintenance facilities. The plan is further to use the existing footprint of the facility to increase the number of activities that the site can be used for (birthday parties, dining area, indoor recreation, etc.), while providing for a safe space for children to shelter during thunderstorms. A very preliminary version of this facility plan can be seen in the photo attached to this post, please understand that is not a final document, and will be subject to change.
Because the lot on which the pool is located is not a blank canvas in an open field or parking lot, specific plans need to be made to fit the community needs and desires to the space available. Additional construction documents need to be created to generate cost estimates for the upgrade project. It's only after these plans are made that we can plan for the facility’s refurbishment and start seeking funding for the project (because until we have the plans, we don’t know what we’re asking for).
While the original plan was to apply for planning funding and plan for the pool facility’s refurbishment while keeping the pool open and limping along during the planning process, this spring’s discovery of a large leak has adjusted the timeline. When a large leak was discovered, the Romney Parks and Rec Board had to make a difficult, but necessary decision. An inspection last month revealed that the pool will need a new liner, along with several other very costly repairs just to get the pool open for this season, without consideration of the regular operation costs. The drastic costs that would be required just to open the pool for the season far exceed the funds available (just over $10k in the pool account currently), and all repairs that would be made would likely be undone in the near future when the upcoming pool renovation project takes place.
Because the Town was aware that the pending closure of the pool would have a negative effect on the children that use the facility, the Town started looking for alternative pool resources as soon as the leak was discovered. The Town is currently in discussions with the Peterkin Camp and Conference Center leadership about ways in which their facility can be accessible for local children while the Romney pool is closed for renovation. The Peterkin facility leadership has been more than graceful in working with the Town on this effort, and the Town is working to coordinate public transportation to and from the facility during pool hours. While the access to the facility and details regarding the access are not yet final, we are hopeful that this will be of some relief to local families.
Upon learning of the leak and the pending pool closure, the Town has worked to speed up the planning process. Planning grants (like the one applied for in February) have tremendous advantages when the timing allows for them as they can save tens of thousands of dollars for poor communities like ours. But these grants can take upwards of a year to come through, and the option of keeping the pool limping along while we wait is no longer on the table. Since discovery of the leak, the Town has been researching the cost of the engineered designs needed to start updating the facility and has discovered that these plans can be obtained for approximately $70,000.
With this information in hand, the Town hopes to work with community partners and fundraisers to pull these funds together and start the planning process as soon as possible. With these plans in hand, the Town and Parks and Rec Board can work to finance the facility that our children and community deserve. Although funding sources for the full renovation are far from finalized, the Town has been actively exploring funding opportunities for the upgrade and has some promising leads. In the coming weeks, there will be following information regarding fundraising efforts and Peterkin pool access updates.
The Town and Parks and Rec Board look forward to working with our community members in overcoming this difficulty, and we have faith that we’ll be able to work through it. West Virginians are a resilient and resourceful people; we’ve been doing a lot with just a little for more than 150 years and our small community is no exception.
We hope that the information provided in this post will provide some relief to the frustration that many have experienced in learning about the pool’s closure; and we further hope that this will serve to call forth the best from us. We’ve seen our small part of the State come together time and time again to get through rough times, and we believe that our community is more than a match for this challenge.
Please know that this effort is being supported by your local leaders at every level. We’ve already received support from our county and community leadership that inspires us as we move forward, and it's our hope that cooperation on this effort will strengthen our community for years to come. We thank you for your patience as we work through this and we look forward to working with you on this important community project. Montani Semper Liberi
