Anonymous Donor Makes Offer to Pay for New Pool
Amid longstanding complaints about the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, an anonymous donor has made a tentative offer to pay for a new pool and associated improvements there.
The Y's indoor 25-yard pool has been in the news lately because of problems that have been ascribed in large part to overuse of the exercise facility and its pool and locker rooms.
"What is needed now is a five-year plan from the Y's board," John Ryan Sr., who's a member of it, said during a conversation Monday, a plan that in addition to certain physical plant additions and improvements — a secondary filtration system for the existing pool being a chief one — might, he said, include the construction of a new 50-meter pool with a deep end for diving, whose $3 million to $4 million cost the donor has apparently agreed to underwrite.
It had been rumored that the Y had turned that offer down. "That's not true," Mr. Ryan said when the allegation was mentioned. As far as he knew, he said, the offer was still on the table, "though there's a lot of confusion here, a lot of problems . . . East Hampton Village owns the land, the town owns the building, the Long Island Y.M.C.A. leases the building. . . ."
"I know it's been proposed that the new pool be built where the basketball court is, adjacent to the existing pool, but we don't want to give up the basketball court. Perhaps the basketball court could go somewhere else. . . . We would have to go to the village in any event because we'd be increasing the size of the footprint with more locker room and classroom space," Mr. Ryan said. In other words, there is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.
Mr. Ryan, considered the father of lifeguarding and youth swimming here, said when asked if he thought another pool (money continues to be raised for the construction of one at the Montauk Playhouse) were needed in this area, "Yes, it's needed. Our junior lifeguarding program continues to grow; though while not everyone who takes it becomes a lifeguard, they like getting the certification. Swimming here, at the club, junior lifeguarding and varsity level, continues to grow while such sports as wrestling and lacrosse are struggling."
"It's up to the Y's board to get something together," he said in signing off. "Everybody's got to get their acts together."
East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said that while he had had no discussion with the person who has reportedly proposed to underwrite the cost of a new pool, "a couple of people I've talked with have said such an offer has been made. Obviously, if it were done at the Y, there'd have to be agreements, with the village, which owns the property, the town, which owns the building, and with the Y, which is its tenant."
"I agree with John that there is a need," Mr. Cantwell said, "and that it should go forward if there's someone who'd like to pay for a new pool, and if the demand exists."