We brought your voice, all of our voices, to City Hall. “Do not close the pools, work with neighbors to keep the pools open.” The City held seven public hearings, supposedly to develop a plan to save the pools. Every City Councilor said they wanted to work with us to save as many as possible. Over 500 people attended these hearings, the greatest number of Worcester residents ever to stand up recently to say, “This is what we want”. We did our best to represent everyone’s voices, believing the seven meetings were the best way to bring everyone’s passion, fiscal concerns, and neighborhood priorities together for the good of all. Nothing could have been clearer then the voices of 500 residents from Green Island, Greendale, Main South, GBV and elsewhere saying, “Please work to keep these pools open!”

But democracy was undermined, and failed us. A majority of the City Council ignored everyone’s voices, ignored the planning process and instead jumped ahead to spend up to $2.5 million for just one large mega-pool rather than on the several smaller neighborhood sized pools community residents had asked for.

We say the democratic process failed because the City’s new direction ignores the expressed wishes of all of us. It ignores the public process that was announced. City Councilors promised they would work with us, and instead many turned their backs on their residents in Main South, Quinsigamond Village, Beaver Brook and elsewhere. Pools in each of these neighborhoods will be closed that could have been saved.

Four times, Save Our Poolz brought pool builders and aquatics experts from Boston, New Hampshire and even South Carolina to Worcester. All of these experts said we could build several smaller, state of the art, neighborhood-sized pools for the exact same cost as one of the City Hall mega pools. Each of these designers and builders have worked previously for the state of Massachusetts on other pools. Custom Pools in Portsmouth, New Hampshire even offered to rebuild one of our pools for $500,000. City Manager O’Brien and Commissioner of Parks and Public Works Moylan never tried to speak with any of these experts; they had already decided on their pool, their plan, their consultant’s proposal.

Save Our Poolz has a vision for Worcester’ pools. We’re disappointed with the majority of City Councilors who we feel turned their backs on democracy, an affordable, fiscally responsible plan, and our youth with their vote.

We’re not going away though. We hope that with a louder community voice we can change the direction City Hall and our Councilors are now headed. There are people who truly support us, and don’t just say they’re for the pools and then break their promises. We stand behind our belief that more of Worcester’s neighborhoods, youth and families will benefit from re-building affordable, neighborhood-sized pools, rather than building just a few mega-sized pools which are more than twice as large and harder for young people to get to.

The City’s last plan for Worcester’s pools totaled $10.5 million. Save Our Poolz, in proposing to keep our neighborhood pools at the current size, has never asked the City to commit more than $7.5 million. Our proposal is less expensive then the City’s plan, and guarantees more pools. And let’s not forget, more, smaller pools are what residents asked for. That’s what should matter. That’s democracy.

Sincerely,

Save Our Poolz