Central Huron Council Votes To Shut Down The Clinton Swimming Pool

by Bob Montgomery

Central Huron council has decided to permanently close the swimming pool in Clinton.

Mayor Jim Ginn says they looked at a couple of options at this week's council meeting. One was to go ahead with restoring the pool with a few modifications. This would require public fundraising and corporate sponsorship and grants, but, after consideration, that motion was defeated and council ultimately decided the best option was to close the pool and turn the site back into parkland.

Ginn says two things factored into the final decision. The first was cost, and the second was the lack of response when they went to the public for input. There was very little turnout at public meetings and he says generally, there just didn't seem to be much support for keeping the pool. Ginn says they originally estimated the cost of restoring the pool to be around 1.6 million dollars. That was the price quoted in a survey they sent out, but even at that price only 42 percent of the respondents supported restoring the pool, so council felt at the updated price of five million dollars the support would be considerably lower. Ginn estimated a cost of five million dollars would translate into an annual tax increase, per household, of about eighty dollars a year over twenty years.

Ginn also points out, the pool is about forty-five years old and about the only thing that could be saved is the shell of the building, and that would need considerable renovating. Ginn says he agrees a town does need a pool, but not a five million dollar pool, and even if they cut back to a smaller pool that would likely only save about half a million dollars. Ginn adds the pool has been closed for the last three years without much push-back from the public until council voted to close it permanently.