Swim Team Rules the Board

For the past 3 summers now, our swimming pool has been closing from 5-7pm (Monday thru Thursday) to allow "our" swimteam to practice. They are also allowed to practice in the mornings, they just don't want to have to get out of bed early like all the other swim teams in our area do. There is not a single member of our neighborhood on their steering committee but they do have (barely) enough supporters on the Board to keep this going every year. Our annual meeting is coming up in two weeks and the Board officers (of which I am one) are refusing to put the issue before the entire neighborhood on the proxy that is to be sent out. And since they know I intend to address it, they will most likely seek to prevent the issue from being brought up at the annual meeting for a vote by the residents in attendance. Usually only 25 (out of 263) households are represented at these meetings so it would not be that hard to bring in enough swim team parents to keep it going even if it were allowed to be voted on. These evening closures are costing our Association a lot of pool memberships ($300/family) as once the evening pool closures are mentioned, potential members just join one of the other neighborhood pools in the area. What's the best way to handle a problem like this? I'm confident that if the issue could be voted on by the entire Association then it could be stopped.

Dave,

Our Association is a voluntary association so residents can either pay their annual dues or not. If they want to use the rec area they must first pay their association fees and then fork out another $300 for the rec area. Some Association members don't want their money going to support the pool so the Board likes to pretend that our recreation area (pool/tennis) is a separate entity when in reality it's all the same pot of money. Supposedly the money collected from the swim team and the memberships go to cover the operating expenses of the pool (lifeguards, chlorine, etc.) while the Association dues are used to cover capital expenses like resurfacing the pool, deck, roof, equipment repairs, etc.. This is something that most residents don't realize. If there was ever a surplus collected from pool memberships then that money would just roll back over to the Association. In reality the Association money is still used to balance the pool books at the end of the year. So in reality the loss of revenue from members not joining because of the hours does have a direct impact on the costs to the Association. As such, I would think this issue should be decided by the membership as a whole. There are ample opportunities for our swim team to practice on any morning as long as they're out before the pool opens at noon. They just prefer the convenient hours provided by the 5-7 option. Surprisingly enough they're making the youngest swimmers practice in the colder morning hours.