ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Pay-for-Use May Be the Lifeline

When the budget crunch hits at the local level, there may be no place to turn but to the very people who benefit from a service. At San Clemente’s Ole Hanson Beach Club, that’s certainly the case.

There’s no other level of government to which you can pass along the tough decision. Those who raised their pens in protest after raising their kickboards in unison at aquatics class may have to cast the final vote. It’s democracy at sea level.

The problem arose when city park officials were looking for places to cut the budget by 6% as ordered by the city manager. They looked at the numbers at the municipal pool and figured that $39,000 could be saved by closing it during the winter months, thereby putting from 200 to 300 people who use it during the off-season out in the cold. What the city officials didn’t count on was the response from users, many of whom find relief from aches and pains by participating during the off-season in aquatics class exercises. They inundated city officials and others with letters of protest.

About 150 of them showed up at the Parks and Recreation Commission meeting on May 14, and won an agreement from the commission to recommend that the City Council not close the pool in the off-season, and to find others ways to make ends meet.

But those ends must be met somehow. Some of the ideas for keeping the pool open include raising pool-use fees, charging for parking, having a concessionaire take over in the winter or subsidizing the pool from other programs.

It’s good that the commission is responsive, but it’s also clear that the money will have to come from somewhere. Keeping the pool open by borrowing from somebody else only means somebody else would suffer. Tough choices have to be made.

Some combination of new user fees may be necessary. When the crunch is on, it sometimes makes sense to ask those who benefit to make the tough call. They may have to dig a little deeper to keep their facility afloat off-season.