Letter on Glenwood pool issue

 I read with interest your column in yesterday’s Express. And you’re right, you don’t have a dog in that fight. Neither do I.

I have to note that swimming is perhaps the best exercise there is for the human body (except that it’s really hard to breathe down there at the bottom of the pool, which is why it’s bad for me, I float like a rock). Swimming exercises most of the body’s muscles, exercises the cardiovascular system, and does not place excessive war and tear on the joins (which jogging does – my cousin is several months older than I and has been an avid jogger; he’s in much better cardiovascular shape than I am – but at age 70 he needs new hips and knees).

The situation regarding the proposed public pool in Glenwood is a textbook example of a small group of people inflicting their values on the community at large and trying to stick that community with the bill. Tying the project to a school gymnasium project is a stroke of political genius. Of course, a cynic like me would wonder why the gymnasium wasn’t included in the construction of the new high school in the first place. Of course, that same cynic in me points out that the gymnasium was probably intentionally omitted from the high school project to artificially hold the cost of the new school down in order to be able to sell the project to the taxpayers – and now that the new school has been built proponents can now push for a new gymnasium – and that new swimming pool – as a new project for the taxpayers to pay for.

Years ago I noted that public projects – parks, libraries, etc. – are paid for by all the citizens/taxpayers but are actually used by relatively few of them. The same is true for public swimming pools. 

If a new swimming pool in Glenwood is such a great idea then I say go for it, raise the money privately and build the thing – but keep the taxpaying public out of the picture. If it turns out to not be such a good idea and the thing goes belly up, the taxpayers won’t be on the hook.

Bob Ackley is a resident of Emerson.