Only two weeks left to pump iron, swim a lane or relax in the hot tub before the Trail and Leisure Aquatic Centre (TALC) closes its doors to begin annual maintenance on Aug 10.
“There is a lot of work that cannot be done when the pool is occupied,” said Trisha Davison, Trail Parks and Recreation director.
“We may be closed but it is a busy four weeks.”
The pool will be drained and power washed while repairs are made to its pump and filtration system.
Earlier this year, council allotted over $180,000 to replace TALC’s lockers this summer, work which will be completed before the doors open on Sept 8.
Meanwhile, the fitness centre only will reopen on Aug 19, operating with reduced hours.
In February, the Parks and Recreation Department embarked on a mission to write a master plan for delivery of services to residents in Trail.
The purpose of the plan is to assist the city in developing strategies to provide quality leisure services for the next ten years and beyond.
Over the last six months, information has been collected from stakeholder interviews, council workshops, and a general community survey, which closed July 1.
“Now all that information will be analyzed and reviewed over the summer,” explained Davison.
Key recommendations and priorities extracted from the data will include short, mid and long-term goals and what direction to take the services, she said.
This fall, the Parks and Recreation department will host a public meeting to reveal a draft of the master plan.
“My biggest hope is that by the end of it all, the community has participated in the process to develop the plan,” said Davison.
“Because it is the residents who benefit directly or indirectly from the services.”
When the pool reopens in September, residents will pay 10 to 20 cents more for drop in fees depending on age; $3 more per hour for group swims; racquetball and squash memberships will increase $7 per year; and field house rentals will increase $3 per hour.
In a memo to David Perehudoff, Trail’s chief administrative officer, Davison said that over the past several years, fees for recreation services have increased modestly, but no increase was made in 2012, due in part to the planned changes in Harmonized Sales Tax.
“The average labour rate increase for 2013/14 is two per cent,” said Davison.
This increase is an attempt to balance cost increases in user fees for facilities and parks with what it is believed the market can bear with the inflationary costs of operating facilities, she added.
Trail council gave three readings to the bylaw amendment on Monday night, when enacted allows a two per cent increase to rates and charges for recreational services, effective Sept 1.