The City of Vernon is planning to cut pool hours and raise user fees at the city’s aquatic centre in the name of safety.
The city said it is making the cutbacks to free up funding to meet new lifeguard standards that will add a $43,000 cost to the city’s budget.
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The planned cutbacks have led to some finger-pointing by politicians over who is to blame for the service reduction at the popular amenity.
A city staff report said two nearby electoral areas and the neighboring municipality of Coldstream, whose residents also use the facility, wouldn’t pay a percentage of the lifeguard cost increase.
That led some city councillors to suggest that the outlying areas aren’t contributing equitably to funding the service.
“This is going to impact people that really can’t afford to have their kids in hockey or other sports,” said Coun. Dalvir Nahal at Monday’s council meeting.
“I know I’m going to get in trouble saying this, Coldstream is a pretty lush, bougie place and so it might not affect them but it’s really going to affect a lot of the people that live in the downtown core.”
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