City makes pool rental deals with swim teams

CELINA - City councilors suspended the three-reading rule and unanimously passed two amended ordinances authorizing rental agreements with the Celina Dolphins Swim Team and the Celina Sharks Swim and Dive Team for the use of the city's swimming pool.

The agreements, officially amended Friday following a meeting with both the Sharks and Dolphins teams, states that any swim teams using the pool for practice must have at least 12 members, and will be charged $30 per hour for practices and $50 per hour for meets, director of parks and recreation Craig McConkey told councilors. The meets cannot last longer than four hours; if they do, the teams will then be charged $100 per hour.

"We have those payable weekly, and when they have their end-of-the-year party, just like anyone renting the pool, it'd be $100 an hour for that as well," he said.

Per the agreement, the city will keep all city-owned swim equipment in a trailer at Bryson Pool.

"Anyone (team) who signed an agreement with the city can use it. Not just any team or anyone at the pool over summer can use that city-owned equipment," McConkey said. "We will let them into the trailer when they're going to be used. That way there can't be any accidents to the blocks and (be) blaming another team."

If a team does notice something wrong with the blocks, they must take a picture and notify McConkey right away just to keep all issues documented, the agreement states.

"We did agree in that same meeting that the maintenance and repair costs of that equipment that is owned by the city but only used by the swim teams, that would be shared equally by any team that has signed a current agreement," he added.

As well, the amendment changed the time in between the practices in which the teams must be out of the pool.

"The last version was they had to be exited through the gate within 10 minutes," McConkey said. "Now we changed it to by the end of their actual practice time, they have to be out of there. So actually, part of their time at the pool, they have to use that to exit the pool."

The city will also allow six meets per year between all teams that have signed an agreement.

"So if there are two teams, that is three meets each," he explained. "Or if one team only has two, the other could have four. It was just to limit the amount of time the teams are taking up the public pool."

Celina Dolphins representative and Mendon resident Jeremiah Schmidt said there are still a lot of unresolved issues with the amended agreement.

"Mandating 12 participants actually violates Ohio accommodations for laws (and) arbitrarily restricts community use of public facilities," he said. "Like when you guys rent a shelter house, it could be for one person or it could be 25, right? It doesn't really matter, there's no number for that."

Another issue Schmidt presented was the limit of two hours per practice.

"There's at least 30 minutes of set up," he said. "Then you have 15 minutes to tear down, because everyone knows it takes less time to tear things down. So of these two hours you present, 45 minutes of them are nonexistent. No kid is going to be in the pool."

Councilors deferred Schmidt's concerns to city law director George Moore.

For decades, the summer swim and dive program went under the name of the Celina Dolphins. However, last summer the Dolphins did not field a team, and due to internal disagreements over governance, leadership and other issues, the program split into two camps - a new organization calling itself the Celina Sharks and another which will continue to bear the moniker Celina Dolphins.

The Sharks will compete in the Tri County League, along with the Coldwater Cudas, New Bremen Barracudas, St. Marys Seahawks and other teams. It's unknown whom the Dolphins will compete against.

The city's recreation advisory board in March made a recommendation after a series of meetings to allow both teams to use the swimming pool, "to allow kids the opportunity to swim and dive in Celina," according to minutes read aloud by city law director George Moore at an earlier regular council meeting this month.

Celina Sharks representative and Celina resident Larissa Albert said her team is registered and ready to go, and already has a meet with St. Marys scheduled.

"We would like to get this settled and signed," she said. "We've been compliant with the rental agreement. We showed our insurance already. We have a board. We have our schedule. We are willing to work with the practice schedule and we gave a couple of recommendations on what we would like to do."

The council meets next at 7 p.m. May 12 in council chambers.