Former pool operator Kevin Dessart said he suspects the city found a way to terminate his contract to operate the Aquatics and Fitness Center at Memorial Park and Portal and Wilson Ranch outdoor pools when a third party tried to take over Monument Valley Pool.
The city says Dessart has his facts wrong.
“Kevin’s accusations are inaccurate. Plain and simple…..the termination of the contract was described/expressed clearly in the “Termination Letter” of his breach of the contract and anticipatory breach,” Curt DeCapite, procurement services manager, said in an email.
“The ‘cure’ offered by Kevin to his breach of the contract was not accepted by City management and therefore under the provisions of the agreement the termination took place,” he wrote.
I trust the YMCA will do a good job managing the city facilities. I am curious, however, on average how much did the city agree to underwrite the aquatics operations when they were under the administration of Parks and Recreation? If it wasn’t more that the $700,000 they are now giving the YMCA seems a lot of good people lost their jobs and much more customer disruption has occurred under the illusion of saving the taxpayers money!!
This young business owner is getting screwed, plain and simple. The YMCA decided not to do the pools a couple of years ago because Merv Bennett, while, CEO, admitted it wasnt good business and they would take a loss. Surprise now Merv is now a City Council member and the deal is good. The YMCA is membership based, Christian organization, that gets almost a half million dollars of taxpayers money to fix up the broken down facilities these poor previous people had to deal with and pay for and plus the City is going to “subsidize the Y in case of a shortfall”. The YMCA cant lose. So as taxpayers we can be happy our pools will be open but we are after all the ones paying for them. Also, the east YMCA received millions of dollars in the past from the City for their facility pool to be open to the public as a city pool. Through the years that offer faded away and hardly people had been allowed in or even aware that that pool was accessible to them. Dirty little secrets will come out!