By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
ELLIS — To a standing-room-only crowd and after hearing numerous comments in support of building a new pool Monday, the Ellis City Council voted 4-2 in favor of approving a contract with the Kansas Department of Commerce to accept a $1 million grant that would fund a major portion of a new municipal pool.
The council took action on the contract after the pool was closed by the city nearly two weeks earlier than planned due to water loss.
Justine Benoit, Northwest Kansas Planning & Development Commission, was at the meeting and answered the council’s questions about the contract.
After hearing feedback from some in the community that the new pool should be bigger, Benoit took questions from the council about the ability to change the contract.
“You have the opportunity to make some changes, however, they did rate our application on this design,” Benoit said.
She cautioned the council that changes in the plan could cause the application to be declined, especially considering the Dane G. Hansen Foundation grant that will cover another $300,000 of the project.
The engineering firm that designed the new structure estimated the cost to be $1.85 million, but the final cost could change.
“It’s quite feasible that it could come in under,” said Mayor David McDaniel.
“I think our last street project came in almost $150,000 below the estimate, so the engineers are normal a lot higher than what we see,” said council member Holly Aschenbrenner.
“The funding level is what drove the size of the pool,” she said. “I know that is the biggest concern in town is that this pool is smaller, but the funding level is what is driving the size of the pool, plus it actually doubles our swim load, plus some, so it’s still adequately sized for our community … It’s more functional with the different design spaces that we have.”
She pointed out that trying to make a change now would be a risk, and the funding for a larger pool is not guaranteed.
And while the new pool is smaller in total volume, its design will allow for higher capacity.
“In terms of comparing this size to a lot of the communities around, it is very comparable,” said council
member Jolene Niernberger. “We are just used to big, big.”
As long as the project totals over $1.6 million, the full amount of the $1 million grant will be allocated to the city. If the final price is less, the difference will be split between the city and the grant.
While the council members considered approving the contract, there was discussion on early observations from the current pool as the liner was being removed and areas of concrete were being inspected.
Councilman Bob Redger said it did not appear the concrete was a degraded as they had been led to believe by the engineers and the liner was not installed correctly and questioned the other members if they should consider replacing the liner.
“The thing is we can’t accept either grant to fix our pool,” Aschenbrenner said.
“I realize that,” Redger said. “We are not even looking at a liner. They should have fixed it right to start with.”
Other council members agreed the liner should have been properly installed, but the grant funding is too good to walk away from.
“At what point do quit bandaging the issue and fix the pool?” Aschenbrenner said. “We heard a report a while back that it started leaking in 1981. It’s 2019 and we are still dealing with the same pool.”
“I’m just thinking we have $1.3 million handed to us and you know we are not going to have that another time,” Niernberger said. “And we have a significant amount of the community in support of it, and even if we don’t have everything that we would like paid for by this, how can you turn away that kind of support?
“I don’t see us ever frankly being handed that kind of funding again,” she said.
The community has already rallied around the new project after the sudden closure of the current pool
City Clerk Amy Burton said, even though they won’t officially start fundraising until the Splash Bash, sponsorship forms had already gone out and money was coming in.
“I wanted to report that in the last 10 days, we’ve received over $8,700 in community support,” she said.
Burton also reminded the council they were informed they should not accept the Hansen grant if they did not intend to move on building the new pool.
The city council committed $500,000 in April to fund the project, leaving only $50,500 to be raised by the pool committee at the time of the pool closure to reach the estimated cost of $1.85 million.
With over $450,000 in the city’s special project fund, Burton told the council she believes the project will be able to be completed without impacting any other capital improvement projects.
Originally the current pool was planned to be used for another year, so the council could get potentially lower bids during the winter. But with the old pool permanently shut down, the council is planning to speak with the engineering firm to see about a quicker timeline with the hope of having the new pool open in time for next summer.
In the vote to accept the contract, Bret Andries, Niernberger, Aschenbrenner and Redger voted yes. Steve Ferland and Martin LaBarge voted no.