The St. Albert Sailfish Swim Club isn’t done campaigning for access to an extra lane this summer.
The club’s board president Werner Biegler said last week that the club is organizing a letter campaign in advance of a vote that’s expected to take place at the April 4 council meeting.
The swim club has asked for access to an extra lane this summer. Currently the club gets four lanes at Fountain Park Recreation Centre between May and mid-August.
Negotiations with city staff have found extra room for the club in June, July and August. The sticking point has become a lane in May. The city has a long-time practice of leaving a lane open for the public at all times, though it isn’t official city policy.
Representatives from the club appeared in front of council a few weeks ago to pitch council on the idea. The club has been capped at a 90 swimmer limit for years, and the hope is with extra lane space more swimmers could be added. The wait list was already almost 50 people in February.
Coun. Cathy Heron has since given notice of motion that will allow council to debate the May-lane issue, a discussion expected to occur at the April 4 council meeting.
Heron said she thought the appropriate thing to do was give council a chance to have the discussion.
The motion would give the club 2.5 hours each day the club meets for the month of May this year, as a kind of pilot program.
“I’m mostly in support of it,” Heron said. “It’s one of the harder ones because I completely agree with, although it’s an unwritten policy and just a practice that the city does, that we should always have available swimming lanes for spontaneous recreation.”
She said if that practice was a written policy, she might have hesitated in making the motion. But it’s not.
“(The Sailfish Swim Club is) a very strong voice right now, they’re really trying hard for this … when you see something that’s so important to somebody then I think it’s appropriate to at least listen,” she said, adding she attended the club’s annual general meeting last week.
The club has said it doesn’t often see the public lane being well-used during the club’s swim times. Heron said part of her motion is to have city staff report back on any issues that arise over pool access during May.
“If we can get 15 more kids in the pool swimming as opposed to having an empty lane, that’s probably a positive,” Heron said.
Associate director of recreation facilities for the city Kelly McConnell has said in a previous interview that use of the public lane is tracked and usually has about three people in it.
Maria Sherwin is the parent of two Sailfish swimmers, and is a former coach with the club.
Because of her positive experiences coaching with the club, she knew as soon as her family moved to St. Albert that she wanted her children to become Sailfish members.
“It’s a great club. It’s very welcoming,” she said, praising the environment it creates for both the young swimmers and their parents.
Crowding in the lanes can occasionally be an issue, she said, something that would be helped with the extra lane in addition to allowing the club to add more members.
“We find May is definitely the most crowded month,” she said.
Space to grow has been an ongoing issue over the years for the club.
“Our presidents have always worked hard to get more lanes,” Sherwin said.
Her personal observations have been that the public lane is not well utilized while the club is in session.
