Fundraising not enough as city votes to close Happyland pool By: Joyanne Pursaga Posted: 6:47 PM CDT Wednesday, May. 8, 2024

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This article was published 08/05/2024 (885 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A group of St. Boniface residents won’t get to swim at their beloved outdoor pool for one more summer after all.

Supporters of Happyland Outdoor Pool fundraised $75,000, plus “up to $10,000” from the provincial government. The group offered the cash to help the City of Winnipeg run the pool for one more summer while they worked out a long-term plan to save it.

Instead, all but one member of the community services committee cast a final vote to reject the idea on Wednesday, which means city council won’t be asked to reverse a recent budget decision to close it.

“What I’m seeing now is that the community has stepped up to (raise) some money … but it’s still short of what the cost is to open the pool and operate the pool … At the end of the day, there was a council decision made that Happyland pool would be closed,” Coun. Evan Duncan, the committee’s chairman, told media.

Council voted to close the pool this year and begin public consultations on a possible new aquatics facility in St. Boniface, after hearing the aging Happyland pool would take $3.6 million in capital spending to maintain over the next 10 years. At Wednesday’s meeting, city officials said it would cost $190,000 to open, staff and obtain permits for the pool this year alone.

Coun. Russ Wyatt (Transcona) cast the sole vote against taking no action. He raised a motion to give the pool one more season and seek possible expressions of interest to run it in the future, which was defeated.

The decision followed pleas from several community members to extend the pool’s use for one more summer. The residents estimated doing so would cost between $80,000 and $85,000. In a Wednesday letter, Manitoba Sport, Culture, and Heritage Minister Glen Simard confirmed the provincial government would provide a one-time grant of up to $10,000 toward the pool’s operating cost, which would bring the fundraised amount just beyond $85,000.

Supporters suggested repairs are not urgently needed, so the pool could remain in use for years to come.

“It’s only common sense to keep the pool … You do not throw away a car because it needs an oil change.”–Teresa Cwik

“It’s only common sense to keep the pool … You do not throw away a car because it needs an oil change. You don’t demolish your house because it needs some maintenance, so why would you demolish a pool that has many good years left in it?” said Teresa Cwik.

Cwik said the closure was preventable.

“The pool is an asset the city should have been maintaining and budgeting (for) and not closing down,” she said.

Coun. Matt Allard (St. Boniface), who attempted to prevent the pool’s closure during the budget process, said he thinks it would be challenging to have someone else operate it without a city subsidy.

“Their focus right now is one year … If they make the city whole, that’s an interesting offer. It’s not a long-term solution, though, it’s a one-year solution,” said Allard.

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The committee also voted to keep the vision for the South Winnipeg Recreation Campus intact, instead of scaling back the project to reduce its soaring cost. The city’s recreation facility portion of that project is now expected to cost $94 million, up from $71 million.

The city would cover its part of the cost hike through debt and lobby the federal and provincial governments to increase their funding for the project, if council votes to finalize the decision.

Coun. Janice Lukes, whose Waverley West ward will contain the facility, says it will offer desperately needed recreation.

“We’ve got rapid growth …. We do not have a library, we have one spray pad … We have no pools,” said Lukes.

The rec campus is set to provide three gymnasiums, a walking/running track, fitness areas, multipurpose rooms and a spray pad in its first phase. Those are just a few of the services the area needs, said Duncan.

“They’re still going to need a pool, they’re still going to need other amenities on that site … We can’t scale it back,” he said.

Plan to take fire vehicles off the street rejected

The committee also rejected a Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service plan to occasionally take some fire vehicles off the street, though that also awaits a final council vote. The WFPS suggested the strategy was the only way it could meet a council directive to save $3 million before the end of 2024.

“The last thing Winnipeggers want to see is a potential decrease in resources when it comes to (firefighter response) when they’re in a time of need,” said Duncan, who stressed the WFPS should look at every other option to cut costs.

During the meeting, the head of the local firefighters’ union said there are already too few firefighters serving the city, so reducing services would come with serious risks.

“(This) dangerous practice affects the safety of our firefighters and citizens,” said Tom Bilous, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg.

The committee did not suggest other ways to find the savings.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

Every piece of reporting Joyanne produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.