This should be a great goodbye to this little town that has stolen a piece of my heart, infiltrated my soul and taken up a large part of my energy for the past eight years or so. It isn’t.
Instead, it is a see-youaround kind of so long. That’s because I will continue to edit the paper remotely and do some writing until the best choice for filling this chair can be made.
By the way, this paper won two awards for advertising at the Oklahoma Press Association convention over the weekend. This column won first place statewide in column writing for papers of this size. This is the fourth year in a row for this accolade. I am proud and humbled.
So, let’s talk about some recent clap trap on the good old internet about Watonga should have a community pool.
Well, folks, we don’t. Building one would cost in the neighborhood of $3 million-$5 million. It could cost more than $300,000 to maintain it annually.
Where is that money going to come from? What services should the town stop providing to build a pool? Is it ok if they don’t police your neighborhood?
I believe the Canton pool was a grant project. I don’t know about Geary. I do know that pool has been a real bugger to keep open because it fell below state standards and the city didn’t have the funds to make the needed repairs.
Somehow, they managed, but I am unsure if or when it will open. As of my last phone call to city hall, they were hoping maybe it would open this week.
Then there is the matter of lifeguards. Roman Nose State Park could not get enough to open its pool this year.
Back in the day, being a lifeguard was a glorious summer job for a kid. A little authority, sitting in the sun all day, seeing all your friends and getting paid for it. What more could a kid want?
Now they want something entirely different. Air conditioning. Wi-fi. Screen time. Kids don’t want to be lifeguards much anymore. Our own daughter was a lifeguard, but we lived in Florida. And she was on the swim team. Apples and oranges.
Not to mention the need for lifeguards to be certified, and for some pools, like Roman Nose because it is state owned, have a background check. That takes planning, time and money.
Watonga doesn’t have a designated grant writer. Perhaps there is an experienced one lurking in the shadows who would step up and see what they can do to get us a pool.
We won’t even address the whining and moaning, the gnashing of teeth that would accompany this mythical pool. It isn’t indoors in a climate-controlled building. There are rules and some meany made my child comply with those rules. There is an admission fee and how dare this not be a fee free facility – forget the $3 million-$5 million price tag the city would like to recoup.
To those of you who are now saying ‘The city has plenty of money, what are they doing with all of it,’ did you happen to attend the budget workshop last week? Will you attend the budget hearing next week? Did you tell anyone at the city you would like to have a pool – or a sidewalk, or better drainage or any of a number of expensive projects, so that project could be considered when they were dividing out the money available? Probably not.
You see, that’s the thing about politics. Nobody likes them or wants to be involved in them until they need or want something that politics provides.
You have to be part of the solution, because if you aren’t, you’re part of the problem. And bellyaching about it on the internet won’t help.