AURORA | A proposal to reopen the city’s Pheasant Run and Village Green pools was thwarted by a majority of Aurora City Council members at their 2013 budget workshop Oct. 6.
Instead, council members agreed to continue with their plan to redevelop those pools into spray grounds at a cost of about $1 million.
Residents in the Pheasant Run neighborhood have told council members over the past several weeks that children in the area are too old for spraygrounds but could benefit from the pool. Council members Bob Roth, Molly Markert and Bob Broom agreed.
“Teaching kids how to swim is really important,” Broom said.
Those two pools were originally targeted for closure in 2009 and 2010 because of low attendance. Ultimately, there were not enough votes to keep the pools open.
“It doesn’t make any sense as a long term fiscal decision to open these pools again because during the next budget crunch we’re going to be closing them again,” said Councilman Bob LeGare.
At their budget workshop, council members also said they wanted to allocate $20,000 to resurrect the city’s Sister Cities program, increase the council travel budget by $22,000, put $100,000 toward increasing library materials, and add one code enforcement officer and one full-time community relations employee at a combined cost of $141,500.
City Manager George “Skip” Noe will come back to council later this month with a plan of how to finance those additions to the budget.
The 2013 proposed budget, which still has to be formally adopted by council members, is $250.8 million. That’s up 7.4 percent from the 2012 budget of $233.5 million.
The focus of the 2013 proposed budget is to maintain current service levels while funding council’s new priority initiatives, amounting to about $7.9 million.
Those include: a city and county feasibility study at a cost of $250,000; adding two new computer labs and library materials at a cost of $501,431; adding staff members to help with the city’s redevelopment projects like the Fan Fare building; and funding projects related to FasTracks light rail at a cost of $1 million. Most of those are one-time costs. For the first time in two years, all 2,664 city employees are expected to get a salary raise of 1 percent, at a cost of about $1.8 million.
Reach reporter Sara Castellanos at 720-449-9036 or sara@aurorasentinel.com
But it makes sense to spend $250,000 for a feasibility study as to whether Aurora should become a city and county? It’s apparent city council isnt concerned about the children in Aurora. A salary raise of 1%. . that’s a joke. I imagine most city employees would rather get nothing than get 1%. What else will be cut in order to fund council’s new priority initiatives?
$250,000 for a feasibility study to whether Aurora should become a city and county is not what the people want. Use that money to open the pools!