Council sets Whitewater Aquatic Center contractual negotiation goals

By Kim McDarison 

The Whitewater Common Council Thursday after deliberating in closed session made public several goals which, City Manager John Weidl said, will be offered to the Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center Subcommittee to guide the group forward as it works toward a new operating and lease agreement for the Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center. 

The subcommittee is comprised of elected officials from both the Whitewater Common Council and the Whitewater Unified School District Board of Education. 

The group’s next meeting will be held Tuesday, April 11, at 6 p.m., at the Whitewater Municipal Building, 312 W. Whitewater St., Whitewater. 

The center, which had formerly operated through a contractual agreement made between the city and the school district, has been operating without an agreement in place since 2021, after a contract that was approved by the city council remained unsigned by school district officials, according to documents provided by the city early last month. 

A meeting of the Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center Subcommittee also was held early last month, at which time several members of the public spoke in favor of keeping the aquatic center, and all its amenities, including the leisure pool, lap pool and fitness center, open and available to the community.  

While the meeting was slated to last for two hours, it instead convened for approximately one hour, ending shortly after the residents spoke, with little engagement from members of the subcommittee. 

Responding in March to questions about the length of the meeting, representatives from the city and the school district both noted that the meeting concluded after its public agenda completed. 

A closed-session meeting of subcommittee members appointed by the city council to represent the city was held March 17, for the purpose, according to the meeting’s agenda, of discussing “suggested strategy and recommendations for the city of Whitewater negotiations concerning the agreements with the Whitewater Unified School District related to the Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center.” 

In response to the public and closed session meetings, community members organized and attended on Wednesday a meeting to “save the pool.” 

In a news release, Save the Pool organizers — including Cheri Zimdars, Guy Ledwell, Jeff Knight and Geoff Hale —  said a goal of the meeting was to “keep the public informed of the value of Whitewater’s beloved aquatic and fitness center.” 

The group offered criticism of the process which had allowed the center’s operational and lease agreement to lapse, and the lack of engagement by subcommittee members during the earlier held open-session meeting, further noting within its release: “It is hard to understand the standoff and how anyone would see this impasse as good stewardship of our valued facility.” 

The “Save the Pool” meeting was attended by some 25 people, including several members of the subcommittee, Weidl and school district Superintendent Caroline Pate-Hefty. 

A story about the Save the Pool meeting is here: https://fortatkinsononline.com/save-the-pool-community-members-assemble-regarding-aquatic-center-negotiations/. 

On Thursday, after reconvening in open session, council voted unanimously to adopt a “position” to guide actions regarding future negotiations within the subcommittee.

Councilman Jim Allen read a statement enumerating guidelines which, collectively, comprise the council’s position. 

Allen read: 

• We believe in the importance of the facility as it exists to the city, school district and community including the fitness center, lap pool and leisure pool.

• The facility is a value to the school, city, and surrounding region as a joint venture that is supported by the financial contributions by city and school district resources along with financial support from membership, program revenues and community contributions.

• We acknowledge opportunities for continuous improvement for facility and operational needs and are committed to these improvements, including membership growth, facility updates and visibility within the region.

• We are committed to communicating and partnering with the school district to provide for operational and capital financing that allows both entities to provide excellent service.

• It is the goal of this body to continue our partnership and accomplish our shared goals without going to referendum.

• Both the city and school district have contractual obligations under previous and ongoing agreements that must be honored to resolve the accumulated deficit.

Concerns about unpublished meetings 

In addition, during Thursday’s meeting, Knight, speaking during public comments, cited a meeting about which he had become aware involving at least two elected officials and several members of city staff which had not been brought to the attention of the public through the public meeting notification process. 

He said that the meeting, as he understood it, was attended by some members of the aquatic center subcommittee and not others. 

He said information about the creation of a five-member committee that was slated to meet regarding the aquatic center was available in minutes following a Parks and Recreation meeting, and was approved by members of council during a meeting held by that body on Jan. 17. 

He asked council and its staff to provide him with documentation from the meeting, including an agenda, minutes and any handouts that might have been provided to the five-member group. 

Said Knight: “The reason I’m here tonight is I would like somebody to tell me who did attend from the city … (and) I’d be very interested to know why it wasn’t published and made available with an agenda, and a record, and I would like to know the results of the meeting. What was the agenda and what was the takeaway? 

“I definitely would be interested why the two members of the city council that are on the (Whitewater Aquatic and Fitness Center Subcommittee) were not part of it when everybody else was, and what good could be made out of a meeting between the city and the school district that excludes the community when everybody is already worried about all the closed sessions that occurred? I just want to encourage you, that you come out from behind closed doors, and engage everybody in the community, and give us an opportunity to have a voice.” 

Responding to Knight’s concerns in a followup interview with Fort Atkinson Online held after the close of Thursday’s meeting, Weidl said that the meeting referenced by Knight was requested by city staff for the purpose of better organizing future meetings of the subcommittee and did not include enough elected officials to constitute a quorum. 

“For the purposes of creating a committee, staff don’t count towards a quorum. They can’t, otherwise staff wouldn’t be able to work together without violating a walking quorum,” Weidl said. 

Regarding the staff meeting held to better structure future subcommittee meetings, he said, at least two of the three elected officials serving on the subcommittee from the city would have needed to be in attendance to meet the requirements of a public meeting. Only one elected official from the city, Council President Lisa Dawsey Smith, was in attendance at the meeting referenced by Knight, he said. 

A second elected official, Whitewater Unified School District Board of Eduction President Thayer Coburn, a single elected official from the school board, was also in attendance, he said. 

Said Weidl: “While I do understand that the community desires for openness and transparency, we’ve also got to balance that with the fact we are negotiating a contract with the school district, and, to be perfectly honest, the meeting Jeff (Knight) was talking about was an internal discussion about how the agenda-setting and processes would be handled for future meetings going forward, as it is two organizations working together. 

“It was really the nuts and bolts of who’s leading the meeting. We’ve suggested taking turns. And then the second main thing we clarified, and again, this wasn’t a public meeting, this was a staff meeting with a total of two elected officials — one from the school, one from the city. We talked about ensuring that our agendas are exactly the same, because that didn’t happen for the first meeting, and we talked about ensuring that all of the elected officials receive all of the documents provided by both organizations before the meeting, because that also didn’t happen … The meeting Jeff talked about — and I thank him for making sure we are doing things appropriately — wasn’t a public meeting, didn’t have to be registered as a public meeting, and again, staff don’t count as quorum towards the body as we’re not voting.” 

The two board presidents attended the meeting, Weidl said, “to allow them an opportunity to discuss how they intend to run the meeting, as they are both, it was kind of, you were at the first meeting, it didn’t go very well. We received criticism and that’s fair. This was our attempt internally as staff to address that criticism to ensure that our meetings, moving forward, are more productive.”

Weidl said three staff members from each organization, the city and the school district, also were in attendance. From the city side, he said, staff members included himself, Finance Director Steve Hatton, and Parks and Recreation Director Eric Boettcher. On the school district side, Pate-Hefty and two other members were in attendance, he added. 

Referencing developments made public during Thursday’s council meeting, Weidl said: “What I’m hoping you saw tonight, you know the subcommittee did meet (on March 17) in closed session, they had discussions, those were carried forward here tonight, and there was a closed-session discussion, however, the council came out of closed session and made all of their decisions in open session, publicly, and read verbatim their positions for the community to understand. So, I just ask for a little bit of grace, and allow the common council to do their job, which is sometimes needing to get behind closed doors and talk about what is the best way to ensure we maintain this facility for the entire community, but every decision has to be announced in open session. And I hope, by the addition of the open session tonight, we again demonstrated that, we are not perfect, but we are listening, and we will respond, and we will continue to take actions that increase our transparency and our communication with the public.”  

An earlier story about the Aquatic Center Subcommittee meeting held in March is here: https://fortatkinsononline.com/whitewater-aquatic-center-subcommittee-discusses-operations-finances/.