Snow Job: Council Votes $220K For Pool Parking Lot Reconstruction

It turns out that piling the Community Pool parking lot high with snow now has the borough in deep—to the tune of more than $200,000 in repair costs.

The Madison Borough Council this week approved an ordinance appropriating $220,000 to reimburse the for reconstruction of the pool parking lot.

The payment from the borough’s General Capital Improvement Fund was approved by a 5-0 vote at the governing body’s scheduled meeting June 27 at . Council member Robert Conley was absent from the meeting.

The reconstruction became necessary after the stormy winter, when the lot served as a dump for tons of snow cleared from borough streets.

Borough Administrator Ray Codey told the meeting that the Pool, which operates as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, has already paid out $175,000 toward parking lot construction costs, and that the $220,000 is part of a handshake agreement between the borough and the Pool.

"The Pool's 45-year-old shell, or cement casing, is going to be a multi-million dollar project in the coming years," he said. The town will return to dumping snow at the Public Works yard on John Street. The borough dumped snow at the pool because leaves stored at John Street could not be trucked out before the season's first major snow storm.

“The has put as many Band-Aids as it can on the parking lot,” said Mayor Mary-Anna Holden. “It’s the worst it’s ever been, like little bombs hit it, it looks like Dresden.”

During discussion prior to the vote, Council member Robert Catalanello suggested that frequent users of the pool “chip in” for the parking lot project “so as not to unduly burden residents who don’t use it as much.”

But Codey pointed out that while the borough subsidizes the Pool’s rent as part of a recently-signed lease agreement at a token $1 per year for 25 years, the Pool through membership fees pays its electric and water bills, along with staff, maintenance “and everything else.”