Hoping more residents buy family (versus individual) passes for Waveny Pool as officials plan several new features and upgrades at the facility, the Park & Recreation Commission on Wednesday voted in favor of a new slate of fees for the 2015 season.
Poolside view of the Waveny Pool on a sunny Tuesday in July 2014. Credit: Alex Hutchins
The fee for regular family passes will come down from $475 to $425, under the proposed structure, while passes that allow for daily use and guests will go up, under the commission’s plan. The changes are designed to lure families to purchase season passes rather than mixing and matching daily and guest passes to save money.
“It sounds by looking at everything that people were gaming the system by buying this [individual daily pass] and then bringing in people as guests for $5,” Commission Chair Sally Campbell said at the group’s meeting, held in the Douglas Room at Lapham Community Center.
Here’s a look at the proposed fee schedule, compared to last year:
Waveny Pool Fee Schedule, 2015
| 2014 fee | 2015 fee | |
|---|---|---|
| Family Pass—Regular | $475 | $425 |
| Family Pass—Early bird | $425 | (no more) |
| Individual Pass | $225 | $250 |
| Daily Pass | $125 plus $5 per visit | $175 plus $10 per visit |
| Senior Citizen | $70 | $70 |
| Nanny Pass | $125 | $125 |
| Guest Fee: Children (17 & u) | $5 | $10 |
| Guest Fee: Adult | $10 | $15 |
| Non-resident Pass | $1,000 | $1,000 (limited to 100 total) |
The Waveny Pool financially must self-sustain, and the commission all through last summer had believed that revenues, though up from the prior year, still fell short of projections—a difficult prospect, given what recreation officials have called a sorely needed plaster replacement job.
However, commissioner Doug Richardson said at Wednesday’s meeting that the group “actually had more money then they thought”—more than $300,000 in all, in fact, because two-thirds of each summer’s revenue had been forwarded on to the following year for accounting purposes (presumably because the Waveny Pool season straddles “years” in the municipal fiscal calendar). Commissioners later credited the diligence of town Finance Director Dawn Norton and Budget Director Jennifer Charneski with discovering the extra money, stemming from a mistake that town officials had made several years earlier.
With its newly discovered funds for the pool, the commission plans to complete the plaster job (pegged at about $140,000), likely this fall, and for several upgrades.
Those include ping-pong and foosball tables, new diving boards, umbrellas and tiles, as well as extensive grading and landscaping, commissioners said.
“It’s going to be nicer than the Country Club,” Campbell said.
The commission also talked about possibly keeping the snack bar open later at night for a trial period, in an effort to serve commuting parents who may want to head to Waveny Pool after coming in off of the train, and grabbing a bite to eat before heading home.
Under the new fee structure, 100 season passes would be sold again this summer to nonresidents at $1,000 apiece. Commissioners said the bad feelings for some about selling to out-of-towners had subsided since passes first were sold to nonresidents at a higher fee two years ago. Richardson said the nonresidents—mostly Darienites—often rank among the pool’s best-behaved users.
The Board of Selectmen must sign off on the proposed fee structure.