Supervisor Logsdon Press Release Regarding Hales Corners Pool

Supervisor Logsdon issued a press release with next steps and partnership possibilities regarding the Hales Corners Pool:

Response from Don Schwartz, President, Friends of Hales Corners Park & Pool:

This summer will be the sixth straight summer that Hales Corners Pool is closed.

As for Hoyt Park they were closed for eight straight summers and during that time they visited our Friends of Hales Corners Park & Pool to get ideas from us on how we were able to keep Hales Corners Park & Pool open. We never closed until the summer of 2020.

For several years our Friends collaborated with the SW YMCA and they provided lifeguards at Hales Corners Pool. Secondly, we raised the admission prices, including family passes to reflect the early 2000s and not the early 1970s. Thirdly, our Friends fundraised nonstop and the Hales Corners Lions assisted at an early fundraiser and we netted over $14,000. We literally had dozens of fundraisers for five straight summers and Hales Corners Pool stood on its own without county taxes. Fourthly, the funds raised stayed in Hales Corners and were not put into a county general fund to be dispersed evenly throughout the county. Fifth, with our successes at Hales Corners Pool we approached the county about our Friends group taking over Hales Corners Pool, completely. However, the insurance requirements were beyond what a nonprofit like our Friends could get.

So in the summer of 2007, I worked another public-private partnership with the Village of Hales Corners leasing Hales Corners Pool from Milwaukee County Parks, and our Friends group would pay the Village any shortage of funds. To my knowledge, this collaboration was the first of its kind in the history of Milwaukee County Parks. Right out of the gates that summer Hales Corners Pool was leaking over 70,000 gallons of water each day. I made arrangements with the Hales Corners Fire Department to have Hales Corners pool filled each day while parks staff and the village administrator and DPW director tried to figure out why the pool was leaking, reviewing the equipment in the mechanical room in the basement of the pool house. You can imagine how popular I was during this time. 😳

Anyway, after nearly three weeks of no progress, I called Underwater Connections to see if they could determine the leak and with in fifteen minutes they plugged the leak underwater and it was repaired. Unfortunately, we lost almost a month of swimming and the weather was very rainy and colder than usual the rest of the summer. Our Friends were on the hook for about $20,000 of water costs to the Village. I wrote a grant and the village was paid in full in less than a month.

Also, another public-private partnership was created with Underwater Connections renting Hales Corners Pool and other county pools to give scuba diving lessons. This collaboration went on for many years.

In the county budget hearings that fall, Supervisor Jursik, was able to get the county to approve $60,000 to fund Hales Corners Pool every summer which stayed in place for eleven years through 2019. In the summer of 2008 we opened Hales Corners Pool over the Memorial Day weekend and it was open through Labor Day.

The bottom line is the Friends of Hoyt watched how we did it in Hales Corners and they went in a different direction. Meaning, they found a wealthy businessman who happened to be a Wauwatosa high school graduate and he challenged the Friends of Hoyt to raise X amount of dollars and he would match it. I don’t recall the amount but it was in the millions of dollars.
This is the model that put Hoyt pool on the path of self-sufficiency, a wealthy benefactor.

As a side note, collaboration is the key.

I put together 14- 17 public-private partnerships on behalf of the Friends of Hales Corners Park & Pool and the Milwaukee County Parks Department from 2003-2019.