Did you know that Aspen Mayor Helen Klanderud asked the city’s pool project manager, Steve Bossart, if there was still time to change the pool design/concept at last Monday night’s regular City Council meeting?

And did you know that the city’s pool project manager said, “Yes, changes can still possibly be made IF the Aspen City Council wants to.”

I asked Mayor Klanderud if she would place on the agenda a time for public discussion on the new (not-yet-built) swimming pools, which ARE being built with two types of taxpayers’ money, since my time in the three-minute public comment period has turned more into an Andrew Kole Show than a governmental meeting where elected officials are supposed to address citizen’s comments.

While I was trying to explain why one change should be made now to the pools because not to make the one change now would make it irreparable in the future, the mayor called for a vote of the council members to see if the council was interested in discussing the new pools, as she “was not interested.”

Nicknaming my request for a City Council meeting on the pools with public discussion as “swimming down the home stretch – one change,” I went on KSPN’s Steve Skinner’s morning radio show. Steve Skinner asked a really good question: “Why won’t Mayor Klanderud listen?” I answered, “I don’t know why.”

So instead of conjecturing about why Mayor Klanderud will not hold a public discussion on the not-yet-built pools while there is still time, I have written a letter to Mayor Klanderud asking her why she will not hold a public discussion on the taxpayer-financed pools, and does she ever intend to hold a public “pool” meeting while she is still in office?

“Swimming down the home stretch – one change.”

Toni Kronberg

Water Babies Swimming

Aspen