What’s next for the Blackfoot city pool?

The fate of the Blackfoot city pool is still up in the air.

Monday night, the city council met to talk about its budget and some of its big projects, including the pool. A town hall to hear from the public about the pool was also held last week, and its given the city a lot to think about.

The still unanswered questions for Blackfoot: should the pool be kept afloat? Or should it be let go with a splash?

Monday night, a city auditor talked to the council about budget. The pool is one piece of a deficit puzzle that is currently taking a large toll on the city’s general fund.

“The gross budget to operate the pool is $427,000,” explained Mayor Marc Carroll. “We take in $158,000 in revenues. So yeah, the bottom line deficit is about $230,000.”

Several costly repairs and upgrades still need to be done, plus operating costs. And to add insult to injury, admissions to the pool continue to decline. It’s all making up one big check that the general fund just cannot cash.

The city has tried to pass a $5 million bond to cover upgrades and cover the cost for awhile. But it has now failed twice to get the super majority needed from voters to pass.

At a town hall meeting last week, about 60 people showed up. Carroll said they had a good two-hour meeting and he feels like people didn’t understand exactly what the bond would do or why it was needed, and many didn’t understand the condition of the pool and what it was costing the city. Carroll said he thought those who attended the town hall ended up leaving with a much better understanding of that.

There are still some willing to do what they can to keep the pool open.

“They signed a petition,” Carroll said. “It wasn’t anything that the city put forward. People in the audience started passing around a sign-up sheet. They titled it, ‘Friends of the Blackfoot Pool.’ They presented me with those names after the town hall meeting. There were 24 names total.”

A sign-up sheet with 24 volunteers willing to form a committee to find options to save the pool. Some options discussed at the town hall were to find corporate sponsors to help cover the cost of the repairs, educate the public about the pool’s condition and then try to bring back a bond to voters.

But with the pool being open and costing the city more and more each day, Carroll said he just doesn’t see a quick solution, which is what they need.

“I don’t know right now if that’s too little too late given what we heard from our auditor,” Carroll said. “I don’t know that we have until September to do something else.”

Carroll said one option could be to temporarily close the pool.

“Close it but put it on standby essentially,” Carroll said.

The pool could be temporarily closed until a long-term solution, like passing a bond, could be guaranteed. If that happened, the city could look at reopening it.

Carroll said he plans to meet with those volunteers who signed up. He has scheduled to meet with them April 5 and see what options they can discuss. He hopes the city council can have a decision soon after.

Carroll did add, along with other city council members in the discussion Monday night, that the pool was not the only thing costing the city a lot of money so before they shut down the pool for good, they want to look at other possibilities and recommendations from other areas. Carroll said they want to be as fair as possible.

Carroll and city council also said if they pool were to close, they would try and give as sufficient as notice as possible for its patrons.

Carroll said there’s still a lot to discuss but a decision needs to happen fairly soon for the sake of the city’s budget.