Bouquet Park Pool in Springdale Township on brink of closure, bankruptcy – TribLIVE

Financial woes and a lack of officers might prevent a five-decade-old pool in Springdale Township from opening next summer.

Richard Kern is interim treasurer for the Allegheny Valley Swimming Pool Association, which operates Bouquet Park Pool.

Kern said the most significant issue the pool is facing is the need for volunteers to fill pool board officer positions, including president, vice president, secretary and treasurer.

Board members manage the pools operations.

We need people to be able to assume the role of the board officers, and we need a large number of additional pool board members, Kern said. We believe six is what would be required in order to provide a good size board.

Bouquet Park Pool is a membership-based nonprofit community pool.

Kern said the pool board intends to dissolve a form of bankruptcy unless new board members are found and other issues are addressed.

One of those issues has to do with finances.

The pools annual operating budget is about $75,000. Thats raised through membership costs and fundraisers.

The pool is membership-based but holds several community days each summer when it is open to the public.

Kern said a plan is needed to significantly increase memberships for the 2020 season.

The pool has 115 members. It would need 160 for financial viability, he said.

Were still in debt. We were something like $15,000 in debt come Jan. 1, Kern said. It varies as the off-season goes on as we have certain bills, insurance and stuff, that are big ticket items that show up.

Board members this year asked for help raising $20,000 to be able to open the pool this past summer.

The board met with its members and told them they likely wouldnt open this year unless they raised the $20,000, and would consider bankruptcy protection if they didnt meet the goal.

Many of the members agreed to pay an additional maintenance fee this year, and the pool was able to open.

We werent sure it was going to open. We had a lot of community members step up and some very substantial donations, Kern said. Its just very risky. We have such a large expenditure to stay open legally in terms of everything that we need to do. And if you have bad weather, or you dont get the memberships, we risk taking members funds to open and then not give them a full season.

Kern said some members that stepped up to help fund the pool later ended their memberships due to the cold and rainy start to the swim season.

The pool also lost roughly 50% of its family memberships from 2018 to 2019 in part because of lack of a swim team.

Instead of the 160 members they were hoping for, they received only 115.

That does not raise enough funds to make it throughout the entire year, Kerns said. We would need enough funds to first pay off the debts and then to be able to open up the pool.

The pool was established in 1966. Board members say, since then, operating costs have gone up because of increased water rates, declining membership and various repairs.

The rate to open up the pool is about $10,000. It costs $7,000 to fill the pool with water.

Whenever we make a decision to issue our membership applications we take the risk that if we start depositing checks from individuals and not getting sufficient members that people may pay fully but we may not have enough funds to continue throughout the season, Kern said.

Kerns said at-large pool board members are needed to help with pool operations. In addition, volunteers who dont have to be board members are needed to help with tasks such as maintenance, landscaping, employee management, snack bar management, payroll and fundraising.

He said when the pool board was larger that was fairly easy, but is has become more difficult since pool board members has declined.

This year, except for a few occasions, once the pool opened we did all our landscaping ourselves, Kern said. Its just a pretty big burden on the pool board members to continue to support that.

Workers at Springdale Townships municipal building said they had no comment because the pool is privately owned and separate from the township.

Springdale Township Commissioners Anthony Rozzano and Shirley Redman said they dont have anything to do with the pool and declined comment. Commissioners Timothy Sweet and Charles Common couldnt be reached for comment this week.

Commissioner Henrietta James, whose term expires in December, said the fact the pool might not open next year is terrible. Children of members potentially wont have a place to hang out over the summer, James said.

James said commissioners could potentially vote to donate money to the pool.

I know some people that belong to it who do enjoy it, she said.

If anyone wants to donate to the pool, they can mail checks made out to the Allegheny Valley Swimming Pool Association to P.O. Box 172, Springdale 15144.

Madasyn Lee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Madasyn at [emailprotected], 724-226-4702 or via Twitter.

How to donateDonation checks made out to the Allegheny Valley Swimming Pool Association can be mailed to P.O. Box 172, Springdale, PA 15144.

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Bouquet Park Pool in Springdale Township on brink of closure, bankruptcy - TribLIVE