Opinion: The nicest pool in the South Coast is underutilized

The New Bedford taxpayers paid for the nicest pool in Southern Massachusetts. Are they getting a good enough return on their investment?

By all accounts, the pool at New Bedford High is well-utilized during school hours. Students are fortunate to have such a truly great pool as part of their high school. After school hours, the high school swim team thrives, led by longtime coach Tim Curry. Another user of the pool is New Bedford Parks and Recreation, which sponsors learn-to-swim for children. 

Those are all good uses, but they are all government uses. New Bedford Public Schools provides free access to public-sector users. Thus, none of the users mentioned so far (the high school swim team, New Bedford Parks and Recreation) actually provide taxpayers with a positive cash return. 

The pool sits unused most of the summer and, outside of school hours, much of the school year. This is surprising given how nice the pool is. Nongovernmental entities would love to be able to use the pool. And their programs would be a win-win for taxpayers. The pool would be utilized and New Bedford Public Schools would get a cash inflow.

I am writing to propose one relatively moderate change to the NBPS facility-use policies. It may seem relatively minor, but I think it may be symbolically important. 

Currently, NBPS has three pricing tiers: free for the public sector; an intermediate price for nonprofit entities, and the highest rate for for-profit organizations. My incremental proposal is that NBPS collapse this into two tiers: one for governments and then a second rate for nongovernmental users. That is, all nongovernmental users should pay the same amount (regardless of whether they are organized as for-profits or nonprofits). 

My basic reason is that the distinction makes no sense: I don’t see any (good) reason why organizational form (i.e., profit versus nonprofit) should make a difference in renting the pool. Some learn-to-swim companies are organized as nonprofits (such as the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club), but others are organized as for-profits (such as Goldfish and AquaSafe). All of these organizations do a good job providing swim lessons. There is no reason to charge more (hence to penalize) the for-profit providers.

Cynical readers will infer that I must own a for-profit learn-to-swim company. Actually, I do provide swim lessons, but I do so through a nonprofit.  

Perhaps readers can tell me what the original reason was for charging more to for-profits. I am stumped. My fear though is that it reflects an underlying bias against private enterprise, a sort-of naive Marxism which sees the word “profit” and thinks of the devil. In reality, for profit learn-to-swim companies are typically mom-and-pop franchisees; they are small businesses working hard to provide a service efficiently enough that they can eke out a profit.  

This is an incremental change, but it is symbolic if it can go towards undercutting the inane ideology of, “Government is good. Private sector is bad. Nonprofits are in-between.” 

August Baker is a Mattapoisett resident who teaches swimming part-time in Fairhaven through a nonprofit.