Who's really to blame for Paso's Centennial Pool closure
The Paso Robles City Council voted this month to rehabilitate and reopen the Centennial Park swimming pool. We should all be pleased. The council closed it in February 2011.
But don’t show up at the pool this summer with your towel and swimsuit. It won’t reopen until May 1 of next year. It’ll take that long to rehabilitate and renovate the pool and its buildings. The work will also include some alterations to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Centennial Pool is the only city-operated pool on the east side of Paso Robles. The city also operates the older Municipal Pool on the west side. That one remains open this summer, but it also needs some work to comply with the ADA. So, that pool will be closed next spring for about a month for those alterations.
Some people have criticized City Council members for closing the Centennial Pool, but I don’t think they deserve the criticism.
The people who were actually to blame were big-time investment bankers. Their reckless and criminal actions led to the Great Recession of 2008 and to widespread panic, business disasters and high unemployment. Paso Robles City Manager Jim App said the city’s general fund income was reduced by $4.5 million in each of the following five years.
The city also cut its payroll from 159 employees to 117. And it had to spend $3 million from its $7.2 million reserves. Closing Centennial Pool was one of several steps the city took to save money; doing so saved about $112,000 a year.
We all remember those lean years. The city of Paso Robles didn’t have enough money to repaint the safety striping on our streets. Also, the streets were decaying, and the city couldn’t afford to fix them. In 2012, we recognized the problem and approved a ballot measure to raise our sales tax to fund street repair.
But big banks continue to flaunt their contempt for law and fair play. An example was reported in the May 21 Tribune. Five global banks pleaded guilty and agreed to pay fines totaling $5.6 billion. They were Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Swiss bank UBS.
The first four banks pleaded guilty to several federal crimes in a scheme to manipulate world currency values. The Swiss bank pleaded guilty to wire fraud in cases of market manipulation.
One of the Barclay’s traders wrote something in an online chat room that provides an insight into the thinking of too many investment bankers. He wrote, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”
He’s a prime example of the overpaid wise guys who really caused the closing of Centennial Park pool.
This story was originally published May 28, 2015 at 1:56 PM with the headline "Who's really to blame for Paso's Centennial Pool closure."