Pleasantville Officials Approve Bid to Reconstruct Village Pool
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The Pleasantville Village Board voted unanimously last week to award the bid to start the $6 million pool refurbishment project shortly after Labor Day.
The vote, which was taken at the Aug.12 board meeting, accepted the bid from Heuer & Company of Waldwick, N.J. The construction firm submitted the lowest bid of the four companies competing for the project at $6,033,839.
Mayor Peter Scherer addressed the high cost of the pool, which recently became a contentious issue, and found growing support to delay the project. A special meeting on Aug. 1 saw about 50 people attending in person and another 50 people attending virtually, all in support of the new pool. Last Monday was the deadline for the board to accept bids for the project and be able to start work immediately after the pool’s closure on Labor Day.
“We are confronting the reality we now face, which this is a way more expensive venture than we had hoped it would be,” Scherer said last week. “The reality is that the cost of not acting presents a bunch of risks since we have a pool that has some infrastructure issues that at some point will become a problem. If we were to delay, who knows what that looks like.”
The process to reconstruct the Lake Street facility started four years ago when a special task force was convened and surveyed residents, who largely communicated that they supported a rebuilt pool. The increasing number of heavy rains and floods saw costly damage to pumps, the pool building, piping, filtration and electrical system.
Designing a new pool with a strong infrastructure able to withstand storms made sense to many residents.
Pool reconstruction cost estimates two years ago were about $3 million but the rising cost of materials escalated the price to $4.7 million. Flood mitigation to protect the pool pushed the project cost to just over $6 million. Fueling a debate on whether to build a new pool was a property tax hike of an estimated additional $170 a year until the 20-year bond was paid off.
At last week’s meeting former longtime village trustee Jonathan Cunningham said he supported keeping Pleasantville’s century-old tradition of having a community pool, but the high cost was an issue worthy of public debate.
“I love the idea of a pool. I argued to debate it because $6 million shouldn’t be spent by a village of this size without extensive debate in my opinion,” Cunningham said. “Ultimately the decision to make it a referendum would have been the right decision.”
Trustee David Vinjamuri said the pool was an investment in the village’s future.
“I don’t vote lightly but I vote believing it’s an important thing for the village to do from a community aspect and a safety aspect,” he said. “This is a vital part of the social infrastructure of the village.”
Trustee Yemi Healy, who previously supported a new recreation center over a new pool, said she had since spoken to several residents and received additional feedback on the issue.
“I was new to a lot of this and my job is to listen to people in the village. My concern was getting a bang for our buck, but overall, every single person I spoke to about this vote said they love the tradition of having a village pool,” Healy said.
Pleasantville Pool Task Force Co-chair Troy Tassier thanked the board for its unanimous vote accepting the bid and taking the community’s wishes into consideration.
“I’m here representing the ghosts of the past who worked hard to make sure the community had a place to swim and that the pool is part of our lives,” Tassier said. Construction is scheduled to begin in the fall soon after the swim season ends on Labor Day. The pool is scheduled to reopen on Memorial Day next year.
At the same meeting, the board also approved bids totaling $631,326.50 for drainage improvements at the park on Clark Street and Soldiers and Sailors Field.
Abby is a local journalist who has reported on breaking news for more than 20 years. She currently covers community issues in The Examiner as a full-time reporter and has written for the paper since its inception in 2007. Read more from Abby’s editor-author bio here. Read Abbys’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/ab-lub2019/
