City expects to move forward on plans for a new pool

Sidney residents will likely enjoy a new pool in upcoming years.

“It appears that we will have enough money to do an outdoor pool,” said Mayor Wendall Gaston at Tuesday night’s city council meeting.

Gaston came to this conclusion based on higher than projected sales tax numbers. The city is collecting more than expected overall, despite a refund the city had to pay out in December which left that month’s numbers down.

The mayor suggested that the council make a decision about a pool within the next two months to make sure plans get underway.

“The piece of that that includes an indoor portion is another $5 million and that piece probably doesn’t fit into that plan,” Gaston said.

City manager Gary Person suggested that if the council decides to move forward with a pool that it pick a location in a timely fashion. Quite a few additional recreation projects depend on the pool’s placement. These projects include tennis courts, a skate park and a practice base ball field.

“Those decisions can’t be made until we decide kind of where the pool location should go,” Person said.

The council has three locations to choose from. Site A is the existing pool site, site B is adjacent to the community center and site C is currently an open plot of land next to the t-ball fields.

“We’d like to do the indoor and all that, but just for the amount we have budgeted, we can’t swing that,” Gaston said.

Councilman Roger Gallaway suggested that the council keep in mind a possible desire to build an indoor pool some time in the future when deciding on the location, so as not to lock themselves in at a place where this wouldn’t be possible.