When Kurt Krueger, the president of the Piedmont Family YMCA’s Board of Directors, got up to speak at the October 15 City Council meeting, the first thing he said was that the YMCA and the city have some negotiating to do. The Council is considering a $14 million YMCA facility in McIntire Park, and that afternoon, only hours before their meeting, councilors had received the YMCA’s proposal, the first time specific details about the facility had found their way to paper.
 YMCA plans to build a $14 million structure in McIntire Park still need City Council approval. At issue is the size of a pool in the facility and how much the city should pay. |
The proposal laid out membership fees and financial assistance, things that most councilors liked. It also dove into the specifics of the aquatic facility and its use. Those specifics gave councilors pause. Councilors declined to close the public hearing that night, pushing back any action to its next meeting.
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As the city faces the problem of what to do with its aging indoor pools, residents have grown increasingly vocal in their concern that city swimmers will lose lap lanes, even now a precious commodity. In the proposal, the YMCA said that a larger 10-lane pool with a one-meter diving board is contingent upon the city contributing $1.25 million to a facility, for which the city has already agreed to lease park land.
"It’s gotten very wobbly," says Councilor Kendra Hamilton of the proposal. "It was always supposed to be a competition-level pool, because that’s what the need is in the area." She says the $1.25 million contribution was "absolutely not" an expectation prior to the city’s request of lease proposals. Earlier discussions between the city and the YMCA had raised the idea of the city matching the county’s $1.25 million contribution, though a commitment wasn’t reached.
"We’ve always been firm that with the value of the land we’re contributing that it should take the place of any monetary contribution," says Hamilton.
Councilor Dave Norris agrees. "Their original proposal was to have city funding in addition to the land," he says. "But the city’s never committed to providing funding. Our sentiment was that the contribution of the land was a pretty hefty value."
Councilors did generally like the fee structure set forth in the proposal. City and county residents would pay a monthly family fee of $72, an individual monthly fee of $48, or reduced rates for anyone under 23 years old. The YMCA’s proposal also specified that no resident would be denied access for financial reasons, going as far as to waive any fee for residents living at or below the national poverty level, which is currently $20,650 for a family of four. It also proposed a graded scale of financial assistance for those above the poverty level.
Norris says that the level of financial assistance proposed by the YMCA represents a strong commitment on its part to serve all of the community. He points out the free membership for the roughly 25 percent of the city’s population that lives below the poverty line. "That’s very emblematic of their commitment to not being an exclusive organization," says Norris.
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