Every description of the project before the vote in November 2003 explained that the project would build two aquatics facilities and four splash decks using
$8.1 million in bond money and $1.5 million from the Missoula Redevelopment Agency, Gaukler said. A 50-meter competition-worthy pool would be built at Playfair Park with $1.4 million raised by a group of residents committed to the pool.
“I feel bad that everybody as time has gone by didn't remember those details,” she said. “But as we were going through the campaign, that was a key component - that we already had private money, matching funds.”
The committee took up the aquatics project because of charges made by citizens at the council's meeting Monday night. They said that the project is “out of control” and possibly open to a lawsuit. The ballot language was misleading, said Jane Rectenwald, Dick Haines, Rex Svoboda and Larry Anderson, and the costs are far above what the public approved - up to nearly $14 million.
Specifically, the ballot seems to include the 50-meter pool in the $8.1 million in bonds, Rectenwald said in an interview after Wednesday morning's meeting.
“I think there's a failure in our government,” she said. “The public didn't have complete information, the council didn't have complete information and I think the government has been deceptive.”
Gaukler disagrees. The arrangements were discussed repeatedly in Missoulian news stories before the vote, she said, at public meetings and presentations to service clubs and other groups. The ballot language is expanded in its accompanying Resolution No. 6690, which is three pages long and was published four times in the Missoulian legal ads in the weeks before the election, which is the usual practice.
That isn't enough, said Rectenwald.
“The public issue is this: Do we have to hire a lawyer before we go to the polls?” she said.
Rectenwald is a member of the Missoula City Local Government Study Commission. She favors a city manager form of government, she said, rather than the mayor form Missoula has now. The inadequate public process and cost overruns with the aquatics project illustrate that the current government structure doesn't serve the public well.
“I don't think private citizens should have to fund a lawsuit against the city to get the city to follow the law,” she said.
She is not planning to file a lawsuit herself, she said.
City Councilman and Conservation Committee Chairman Jerry Ballas does not believe the ballot was misleading.
“I don't think so, especially if you look at the preponderance of information that was out there and the information given to the public,” he said.
“There's nothing in that ballot language that connects certain amounts of dollars to doing anything. It's very general bond language, as most ballot language is.”
The hallmark of Gaukler's work in Parks and Rec is public involvement, he said.
“It boggles my mind that someone would say they were pushing an agenda,” he said.
The project went through months of public council committee meetings last winter and spring after the lowest bid came in $2.3 million over projections, and council members looked for ways to cut the project and find more money. Ground was broken in July at Playfair Park, and the project has been under construction since.
“To have somebody come in and say at this late date, ‘You've got to stop' is just amazing to me,” Ballas said.
“It's easy to make charges and innuendo,” he said. “What they don't realize is they're putting a whole lot of people at significant amount of risk.”
Ballas will continue discussion of concerns about the project at next week's Conservation Committee meeting. He'd like to hear from every council member, he said, and take official action to review or not review the project.
“Until we take a vote, it's just personal opinion,” he said.
At Wednesday's meeting, two council members - Don Nicholson and Clayton Floyd - expressed concerns about the project. Council President Jack Reidy reiterated that he opposed it from the start and would not vote for any more money for it.
Councilman Don Nicholson has misgivings about the project and wants the council to review it.
“This is a classic screw-up by amateurs, including myself,” he said in an interview Wednesday. “I have the responsibility to look into this. My business background says it stinks.”
Nicholson agrees that the ballot language is misleading and seems to promise a 50-meter pool as part of the $8.1 million.
“When people are looking at this language, it says, ‘50-meter pool' and ‘$8.1 million,' ” he said. “I think there's an assumption that you can build all this for $8.1 million.”
It's in the resolution, sure enough, he said, but it's not on the ballot.
Nicholson wants that legal question answered.
He also wants a discussion of the exact recommendations that came out of the Aquatics Task Force. Rectenwald charges there was not enough public involvement and the task force recommended different things for the project.
Nicholson also has trouble believing the projected attendance figures, which determine how much subsidy the city has to provide to run the pools each year. Parks and Rec's numbers, arrived at with a consultant, say that attendance will go from 36,000 swims a year to 180,000. Revenue from those admissions will set the city subsidy at $125,000 a year.
But Nicholson, using some data Rectenwald gathered by talking to other cities, thinks probably attendance will be closer to 72,000. That would necessitate a city subsidy of $668,739, he figures.
“Now I would say to the future mayor, ‘Do you have that much money in your budget?' ” he said.
“Are we about to make two 50-year mistakes?” he said. “I think that's the question.”
Gaukler said the project's consultant, Ken Ballard of Ballard and King based in Denver and St. Louis, gave her every reason to trust the projections. The pool operation is going from three months a year to 12, she said. And Spartan Pool at Playfair Park has been regularly filling to capacity with 200 people 15 minutes after opening on hot days.
If the number is too high, she said, they can adjust staffing, the season or fees to compensate.
“We're not trying to hide anything or pull the wool over anyone's eyes,” she said.
The charges about the project are baffling, she said.
“I'm thinking, ‘My God, what's going on in our community?' ” she said. “I think this is a wonderful thing to celebrate in the community. I strongly believe that our citizens support this. People stop me on the street and say, ‘I can't wait until it's open.' I don't know who the attack is coming from and what the agenda is.”
Swim Missoula, the group of swim enthusiasts, has encountered confusion among residents as it has worked to raise money for the 50-meter pool, said board president Jack Tuholske.
“There continues to be a perception in the public's eye when we go ask for funds that they already paid for that,” he said.
However, he said, support for the pool is widespread.
“Swim Missoula is committed to having the aquatics project move forward,” he said. “And we believe the 50-meter pool is an integral part of the project.”
The group has raised just more than $100,000. Its contract with the city says that it will raise the money by 2009.
Tuholske, who is an attorney, would not comment on the ballot language because the possibility of a lawsuit has been raised.
Swim Missoula is not involved with the critics, he said.
“The people that spoke Monday night have no connection with Swim Missoula,” he said. “They're not affiliated with us in any way.”
Reporter Ginny Merriam can be reached at 523-5251 or at gmerriam@missoulian.com
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