HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-10-21 Correspondence - Barracudas - Aquatics Facilities City Commissioners,
I am forwarding a copy of the most recent communication we had with Jeff
Mihelich after a meeting we had on August 19, 2021 . The purpose of this
letter was to reiterate our desire to work with the city to improve aquatic
programming in the City of Bozeman and to summarize our conversation
during that meeting.
Currently, the aquatic facilities we have are not keeping up with the city's
growth. In 2007 and again in 2012, it was recognized that the city had a
need for bigger/ new aquatics facilities and yet in 2021 , we have the same
aquatics facilities and this past year those are open at about 50% capacity.
As a swim program, we of course are concerned how this is impacting our
business operations. We are a non- profit that relies on dues to maintain
our budget. At this point, the current schedule is impacting our ability to
grow and offer quality programming for our city's youth. Currently, we have
over 150 swimmers registered for our program and another 70-80 wanting
to join our club. This is reflective of the city's growth and also the quality of
programming we offer to the city's youth. Our allotted practice time has
been cut by 25% compared to past years when demand for our services
has doubled. The reduction in pool time has negatively impacted our ability
to serve area youth. We are the valley's largest youth Aquatics program
and second largest User Group for the swim center by visits/ days.
In addition, as a parent, I am concerned about the lack of accessibility to a
quality learn to swim program in a state that has numerous lakes and
rivers. Our city needs access to Learn to Swim Programs that can
accommodate the numbers of children in this valley. It is critical to their
survival.
We have had numerous dialogues with the city management regarding
these problems and have offered numerous suggestions and options
including: partnering or assuming the learn to swim program to free up
lifeguards to be able to guard the pool so it can be open for regular hours.
We have also offered our staff and swimmers as guards to assist in staffing
issues. We have been told that they are open to "creative solutions" but
have been offered no creative solutions, or collaboration. We discussed a
round table of user groups at our meeting in June with a suggestion and
acknowledgement that this would be good to occur before the fall
scheduling happened. That round table meeting has still not been
scheduled.
In closing, we are looking at ways we can partner with the city to improve
the area aquatics programming. We would like to have a seat at the table
with other user groups as discussions of remodelling our existing pool
space and the development and design of a new one. We wanted you to
know the efforts we have taken to have our voices heard and how we are
offering to help in this challenging, but necessary endeavor.
Thank you
Board of Directors Bozeman Barracudas
Bozeman Barracudas
:x
Swim Team USA
SWIMMIN(i
To: Jeff Mihelich, City Manager
City of Bozeman
121 N. Rouse Ave.
Bozeman, MT 59715
August 23, 2021
Dear Jeff,
Thank you for the extended time given to us and listening to our concerns about clearly
identified unmet needs in our swimming community. In addition, we are excited that you personally
invited us to participate in public forums to provide our expertise in helping to support the needs of a
new aquatic complex in the near future 2023-2025.
Jeff, we heard you express that change is coming soon where the City will be in a position to
listen and hear the needs of user groups with the intention to work with public groups, especially our
group in particular, as we are one of the largest user groups in aquatics; wherefore that being said,
we have optimism, cautious optimism that we were heard.
To recap our discussion, firstly, we brought forward the numbers of Admittance by Purpose
and demonstrated that the Bozeman Barracuda Swim Team, as the area's primary provider of youth
aquatic sports and instruction, ranked second amongst the number of person visits by purpose
holding 25% usage; this is second only to the cumulative Lap Swimming averaging 29% rounded to
the nearest percentile.
The city population has more than doubled since swimming facility insufficiency was first identified
in 2007, yet those same insufficient facilities are now only open 50% of the time. As a result, we
pointed out that our ability to meet the needs of Bozeman's youth have been and continue to be
jeopardized by our diminished access to pool space and time. Consequently, we have filled our
allotted capacity delegated to us by management and still have a waiting list of 90 young swimmers.
We have shared several well-established and candid solutions, pointing out that many issues seem
to originate with the lack of communication. In particular, preparing for this short-course season, we
were not consulted but rather delegated limited usage by lane assignment instead of best practices
i.e. block scheduling, which distributes equitable allocation of space to meet the needs and
demands by the City of Bozeman citizens who outsource their swimming needs to the Barracudas
Swim Team.
Because of this, it would be helpful to know the city's official policies regarding the Aquatic Center.
We have asked for a written copy of these policies, the dates of their approval and implementation,
along with the procedures by which policies are initiated and changed.
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Thus these are the two primary issues we are trying to solve at this time are:
1) the inadequate and inequitable lane space allocation, and
2) the detrimental loss of our previous 2-hour time block.
We respectfully ask for use of the entire pool during the allotted time, and at a minimum a return to
a 2-hour time block.
Secondly, we strongly agree that it is very important to address the safety concerns at the
aquatic center(s). Safety is of critical concern to us as well, and none of the proposals that we
present deviate from Aquatics safety best practices.
Therefore, one significant and serious issue that needs to be identified is, how many lifeguards will
be required to restore public access from the current 50% closure of City Aquatics? Followed by
what strategy will the City be taking to prevent this shortage from happening next year?
Another serious safety issue is that swimming in unmarked width lanes is an unorthodox practice
and is not how competitive swimming pools are operated. Unmarked walls are dangerous when
making turns, which places the City of Bozeman kids at a disadvantage to all other teams in the
country. We have proposed solutions, requesting that lanes and walls be properly marked, and were
told it created a safety issue; this claim is not in alignment with any modern facility practices.
This combined dilemma originated from a scheduling conflict that has forced us to swim in unsafe,
substandard, unmarked, 20-yard widths in a pool that is not designed for it. Thus, the existing
scheduling conflict alongside a nine-person synchro team has proven detrimental to both user
groups needing pool space. We've had times when 24 kids had to share a lane; this is unsafe.
Importantly, we pointed out that other smaller competitive teams from adjacent communities have
been offered pool space before the needs of our Bozeman swimmers; and, none of these outside
teams are asked to swim unmarked 20 yard widths.
In regards to the City's strategic plan, how, when, and by what means are routine audits done to
meet the Aims and Objectives of the aquatic facility? Here's a recap:
City's Strategic Plan:
o A well-planned city with a focus on safety, sustainability and inclusivity.
o A community that supports creativity, education, and an innovative economy.
• A high performing organization that utilizes best practices to anticipate future needs,
and engages the community for continuous improvement.
Finally, we want to thank you for agreeing to organize a public round-table to identify the
most productive, efficient, profitable, efficient, beneficial, and valuable uses of the existing aquatic
facility, as well as hearing and listening to the deficiencies and shortfalls. Please hear that we want
nothing but success and an increase of equitable utility and revenue for the City, its
managers and user groups of the City aquatic programs. We are looking forward to hearing
back from your colleague, Mitch Overton regarding a set date around Nov. 1st to participate in the
City roundtable in the next two weeks, as agreed.
Swimcerely,
The Board of Directors and Coaches of the Barracudas Swim Team
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