Peru Pool Committee pauses $7M municipal pool plan

Peru residents will have to wait for the City Council to determine whether the city will build a municipal pool.

Last week, the city unveiled concept drawings for the proposed $7 million pool during the municipal pool committee meeting. If built, the pool would feature diving boards, a water slide, 25-meter competition lanes and a capacity of 434 swimmers.

Committee members said the city could fund the pool with a 20-year bond. However, during Monday’s committee of the whole, some aldermen weren’t convinced.

Finance Chairman Tom Payton said the minutes from last week’s meeting didn’t say anything about an interest rate on the bond.

Mayor Ken Kolwoski said he had talked with City Finance Officer Tracy Mitchell regarding a possible interest rate.

“I don’t know exactly right now what that interest rate would be,” Mitchell said. “I really don’t want to make an assumption. But it’s like a mortgage. You take out a certain principal amount … you would have to pay interest.”

Beyond the financial questions, committee members wanted to know what the next step in obtaining a pool would be.

Director of Engineering/Zoning Eric Carls said that the city typically would have a detailed site evaluation to determine where the best site would be before determining costs associated with the site. The step after that would be seeking a proposal for developing the plan.

“What I typically see in a project like that, from a plan preparation and permitting standpoint, is probably at the earliest anywhere from nine to 12 months,” he said.

Carls said the city then would work through design drawings before those would be distributed to actual contractors to bid the project.

He said that the only steps presented at this time are conceptual drawings, which are presented to the council before projects.

“We have to execute an agreement with the consulting firm,” Carls said. “What I’ve typically seen in a lot of our projects is those agreements can range anywhere from say 7% to 10%.”

Kolowski said he didn’t think it was smart to advance with spending $600,000 on a design before determining that the city wouldn’t move ahead with the pool.

Pool committee member and alderman Andy Moreno said that the point of the committee also was why he wanted the vote to be next Monday – to establish location, cost and design.

Alderman Jason Edgcomb said he believed it would be premature to vote on the pool.

“There sounds like there are questions that aren’t answered,” he said. “I don’t really know what I’m voting for at this point … but I’m going to recommend to find out our next steps.”

Edgcomb said that the committee should have Pool Committee Chairman Rick O’Sadnick, who was not present Monday, reach out to architect Mike Kmetz and have him come next Monday before the City Council to answer the lingering questions and figure out next steps.

The committee of the whole will meet 6:30 p.m. July 28 before the lingering meeting to discuss outstanding questions concerning the municipal pool. No vote will be scheduled that day regarding the pool.