1947 replies to this topic

[spanky123]

I think we've covered enough comparables in this thread to conclude that the $70 million price tag attached to this one is ridonkulous.

 

The huge new centres built in Edmonton and Calgary have multiple swimming pools and multiple hockey rinks and other stuff like libraries. This is one pool, zero rinks and zero libraries. They are not comparable.

 

The pool will cost $35M. The other $35M is padding. That way the pool can wind up costing 2x what it should and the Mayor will still claim that it was on budget. Anything the might be left over can then be used to pay for more homeless shelters.

[aastra]

Hey, if Victorians really/truly want a new 50m pool complex at Central Park and if they end up getting something close to what they're paying for (and if they can afford to pay for it in the first place) then that's great. A new aquatic centre is a wonderful thing. Fantastic community resource. My shtick in this thread has been about questioning the assumptions and pondering what Victoria actually needs.

[Mike K.]

The price tag is absolutely shocking. Once the dust settles every single Victoria resident will be on the hook for $1,000 for this (not including three councillors who don't actually live here; I added their portion to the rest of ours).

[Bingo]

 My shtick in this thread has been about questioning the assumptions and pondering what Victoria actually needs.

 

Many people have their personal finances in a shambles because they have unrealistic wants and they loose sight of what they actually need.

[Cassidy]

Unfortunately, the City has only to pass a bylaw to get their hands on the money (even though City taxpayers will be on the hook paying it back for what - a couple of decades?).

 

If the City had to take out a loan based on their current and projected financial health (like normal people), the "banks" response would possibly be along the lines of:

 

"Sorry Ms. Helps, you simply can't afford a new $70 million pool, and we are therefore unable to assist you - if you'd like, I can make an appointment for you with one of our financial counselors, who may be able to help you learn to live within your actual means".

Edited by Cassidy, 10 March 2017 - 11:34 AM.

[VicHockeyFan]

Can we at least please learn who uses the pool?   It's really simple.  For one full week, simply poll all users when they check in.

 

What municipality do you live in?

How often do you use this facility?

 

Never hurts to learn something.

 

Apparently all we know right now is there are about 4,000 pass-holders.  So this thing is costing $17,500 per pass-holder.  I'd vow to never swim again if you offered me $10,000.

[DavidL]

I'm curious as to why there's little mention by the mayor and council of the 2015 Stantec report that came in with a $6.2 million budget for a 15 year lifespan extension, and how that morphed into a $40 million 30 year extension?

[Daveyboy]

I'm curious as to why there's little mention by the mayor and council of the 2015 Stantec report that came in with a $6.2 million budget for a 15 year lifespan extension, and how that morphed into a $40 million 30 year extension?

 

That's easy when you multiply $6.2 million (good for 15 years) x 6.45 = $40 million (good for 30 years!!)

30 years lifespan extension is equal to 6.45 times the cost of a 15 year lifespan extension.  It must be an exponential factor that only City Hall understands

The whole point is to ridicule the idea of refurbishing the pool.

[lanforod]

VHF, swim meets and lessons would not have passes for the most part. I bet most pass holders are regular lane swimmers or folks who like to use other amenities at least weekly such as hot tubs and sauna. I wonder if passholders account for even half the usage.

[VicHockeyFan]

VHF, swim meets and lessons would not have passes for the most part. I bet most pass holders are regular lane swimmers or folks who like to use other amenities at least weekly such as hot tubs and sauna. I wonder if passholders account for even half the usage.

 

Oh, for sure, I'm not suggesting they do.  But it would be nice to find out what's up with usage.  I've said this before, if there is an opportunity to share this with another municipality or YMCA etc, why not give it a go?  Why are we always working in our silo?

[Midnightly]

i will  speak up as someone who uses this pool on a regular basis, we do swimming lessons there, we go for family swims there, i know many schools who run swim club out of there (after school and during school hours, there are kids in the community that would never have swim lessons if it wasn't for crystal pool) there are many meets run out of that pool, and many swim teams practice there, at 4pm on a wednesday that pool is crazy busy barely a free space to be seen.. heck my child was there 3x this week alone.

 

i would say i'm your typical pool user we are there atleast once a week(i don't have a pass) and i don't think the current pool/building is meeting the communities needs anymore.  the community is growing.. all you have to do is look at all the condos going up and the explosion of kids entering the local school.. and this can drive people to go to other pools or rec centers to access what the current pool is lacking(like parking, work out equipment that isn't in a humid environment over looking the pool family change rooms so they don't have to bring their 8yr old boy through the womans change room just to name  few)

[Mike K.]

How do the rates compare with other facilities, and would much higher rates be a hindrance to users at Crystal? I can imagine a new facility would be the most expensive in the region once built.

[qv]

Unfortunately, the City has only to pass a bylaw to get their hands on the money (even though City taxpayers will be on the hook paying it back for what - a couple of decades?).

If the City had to take out a loan based on their current and projected financial health (like normal people), the "banks" response would possibly be along the lines of:

"Sorry Ms. Helps, you simply can't afford a new $70 million pool, and we are therefore unable to assist you - if you'd like, I can make an appointment for you with one of our financial counselors, who may be able to help you learn to live within your actual means".

This is a pointless argument. Governments are not households, and it is ridiculous to compare them. Governments, for example, can increase taxes to meet obligations.

[qv]

i will speak up as someone who uses this pool on a regular basis, we do swimming lessons there, we go for family swims there, i know many schools who run swim club out of there (after school and during school hours, there are kids in the community that would never have swim lessons if it wasn't for crystal pool) there are many meets run out of that pool, and many swim teams practice there, at 4pm on a wednesday that pool is crazy busy barely a free space to be seen.. heck my child was there 3x this week alone.

i would say i'm your typical pool user we are there atleast once a week(i don't have a pass) and i don't think the current pool/building is meeting the communities needs anymore. the community is growing.. all you have to do is look at all the condos going up and the explosion of kids entering the local school.. and this can drive people to go to other pools or rec centers to access what the current pool is lacking(like parking, work out equipment that isn't in a humid environment over looking the pool family change rooms so they don't have to bring their 8yr old boy through the womans change room just to name few)

I agree that the pool is a great community asset, but I think there is a valid question about whether we need a full size pool, or whether a 25m pool would do.

[Cassidy]

This is a pointless argument. Governments are not households, and it is ridiculous to compare them. Governments, for example, can increase taxes to meet obligations.

That's the point of the post fella'

Pass a bylaw, don't worry about it, raise taxes ...

[Midnightly]

How do the rates compare with other facilities, and would much higher rates be a hindrance to users at Crystal? I can imagine a new facility would be the most expensive in the region once built.

 

currently the rate at crystal pool is just a hair cheaper then some of the other pools (as in 50c-$1 but still within a reasonable range)  all offer a single rate, a child rate and a family rate, the most public expensive pool (understandably) is commonweath..but the most expensive pool (if you don't have a pass) is the YMCA for that if you wish to swim you have to buy day pass which is substantially more expensive then any of the other pools (crystal pool a family will cost you $11.50 where YMCA a family day pass will cost you a tad over $20)

 

 

 

 

I agree that the pool is a great community asset, but I think there is a valid question about whether we need a full size pool, or whether a 25m pool would do.

 

would a 25m pool be big enough for the to fit the community needs? if the pool made most of it's revenue off public swims i could agree with you but with how many clubs train out of that pool, people who swim lengths taking away the full sized pool would kind of feel like we were going backwards.. the clubs and swimmers would go other places (if other spaces were available), it also limits the amount of lessons they can offer and that place is hopping at 3-6pm with classes, there is barely a space to be seen. they can have 6+ different levels of lessons happening in the main pool plus a swim club doing lengths are the far end where if they had a pool similar to say esquimalt they could only mange 2 maybe 3 sets of lessons in the main pool at a time

 

if a new pool/building comes in i would like to see them looking towards the future needs the community not setting limitations, if they go the remodel route to make it more of a community space and offer so much more

[spanky123]

I'm curious as to why there's little mention by the mayor and council of the 2015 Stantec report that came in with a $6.2 million budget for a 15 year lifespan extension, and how that morphed into a $40 million 30 year extension?

 

Simple answer. The Stantec proposal estimated what it would cost to repair and maintain the pool for 15 years. Once City staffers got involved this became a chance to 'enhance' the pool and facilities which then drove up the costs. I pointed out a few examples earlier in this thread where things like replace the rusted doors on the electrical cabinet ($150 maintenance) became move the electrical room to the other side of the building so that the doors don't rust again ($1.5M enhancement) or instead of replacing the sand in he sand filters ($200 maintenance) becomes replace the entire filtration and chlorination system ($1M enhancement). Do this a few dozen times and you get to $40M pretty quickly. Of course the goal was never to justify a $40M renovation, it was just to get the number so big that people would accept a $69M replacement.

 

Same thing was done to justify the bridge replacement. At least I am encouraged that Helps is saying that she isn't taking a position on this. That just means to me that she feels as though the referendum may fail and she wants to be able to claim that it was not her idea after the fact.

Edited by spanky123, 12 March 2017 - 02:32 PM.

[DavidL]

Simple answer. The Stantec proposal estimated what it would cost to repair and maintain the pool for 15 years. Once City staffers got involved this became a chance to 'enhance' the pool and facilities which then drove up the costs. I pointed out a few examples earlier in this thread where things like replace the rusted doors on the electrical cabinet ($150 maintenance) became move the electrical room to the other side of the building so that the doors don't rust again ($1.5M enhancement) or instead of replacing the sand in he sand filters ($200 maintenance) becomes replace the entire filtration and chlorination system ($1M enhancement). Do this a few dozen times and you get to $40M pretty quickly. Of course the goal was never to justify a $40M renovation, it was just to get the number so big that people would accept a $69M replacement.

 

Same thing was done to justify the bridge replacement. At least I am encouraged that Helps is saying that she isn't taking a position on this. That just means to me that she feels as though the referendum may fail and she wants to be able to claim that it was not her idea after the fact.

 

I agree that the "alternatives" to a new build are positioned to make new look like the most viable alternative, as was done with the bridge, but it still annoys the heck out of me.  I just don't see why it is suddenly such an emergency to move forward on this instead of taking the time to actually consider creative alternatives, including partnership ideas that both have been mentioned in this thread and others.  As someone brought up earlier, in the span of a couple of years the mayor has moved from a position of thinking that no one is asking for a new pool to one that we need a new pool complex right now.  Crisis management thinking rarely produces strategic forward thinking outcomes.

 

I think the mayor saying she's not taking a position on this, and that the city is not taking a position on this is quite disingenuous as it is the council and the city bringing this to the public as the best solution to the problem that they suddenly feel needs solving.  Her response to the question of what would happen if the referendum fails on cfax last week was that likely the pool would be simply closed at some point.  Given that there is a whole spectrum of solutions in between closing it down and building a new one this hardly seems like she's not taking a position.

[Mike K.]

Good points.

Reminds me of the fearmongering campaign that surrounded the bridge. Had we not voted to replace it, we were told the bridge would close by 2014 for safety reasons (or was it even earlier?). Officialdom, of course, quickly removed the rail span (2011, SIX years-ago) to visually prop up the immediacy of the whole project.

Three years on, not a quip is being made about the threat of an immediate bridge collapse.

I take Helps' threat of Crystal's closure about as seriously as Fortin's threat about an imploding bridge.

[29er Radio]

this is the least creative way to handle a significant city asset, and yet "they" continue to ask us
to trust them. From one bad infrastructure project to another. I am sure most of Victoria staff must
live in other taxing jurisdictions and secretly hate the tax payers of Victoria.