questions in need of answers

Is the Doral Swim Club a seperate entity from the Miami Dade Aquatic Club? These are excellent questions that need and deserve answers! This a great oppurtunity to shed some light on this, yet another highly questionable and very poorly managed city service. Do you think it would be helpful to know if there are ANY bills still outstanding from MDAC, the high schools, Rip Tides, or the scuba guys? How much have we received in revenues from them in the past? Where would THOSE billing invoices and deposit slips be? How much revenue do we receive for renting our pool for water polo camps? Are the Rip Tides nonprofit? How do we (Springs pool officials) document the swimming lessons level, participation, teachers, and revenues? Are kids taking swimming lessons also counted as casual users? how much is charged for swim lessons? how many total swim lessons do we give per year? are they charged whether they show up or not? what percentage are given during the Summer? the rest of the year? what was our total annual pool heating bills for the past three years, broken down monthly? Why do we NOT have a sign-in sheet, so we can verify whether to charge resident or non-resident fees? How do we document residency, or not? Who is responsible for cash taken in on a daily and weekly basis? There is much that needs explanations and understanding here. This is a good start. Lets see what the answers are.

pool ponderings

According to the pool records we received $1200 for the Devil Rays swim meet 11/8 and 11/9, which is just about the take from concessions, right? there was also a 4150 fee assessed for pool rental. How much it cost us additionally has not been determined yet, for overtime on Sunday and extra staff to clean up. Apparently MS Middle has a swim team also and uses our pool for practices, in addition to MSSH, MDAC, Reagan, and Columbus HS. There is pretty good records of that daily breakdown a LOT of the time. Apparently the City received $1100 for the GMAC swim meet 10/23, 24, and that amount is clearly stated as revenues from the concession stand. There is no other revenues received listed for those days. The daily logs are somewhat confusing. For instance, Oct 21, 2008 the dailiy log shows 88 swim team members used our pool for practice- Columbus 17, Springs mddle 14, Reagan 16, MSSH 13, and MDAC 28- for which we billed and received $125, put into the category of swim lessons. Swim team practices are swimming lessons? A separate category is for swim lessons and that indicates 9 swim lessons were given that day, yet NO income was registered. What is an active learning check? Somebody who knows something about swim operations would probably have to decipher this. Is this intentionally hard to figure out or just erroneous bookeeping at times? Perhaps Mr Gorland Monday can help with this? Or anybody else who would know, really. Perhaps the pool lady who is so knowledgable about pool activties could make some sense of these daily log sheets.

pool info needed

I too, went to the swim meet and found they had between 320-350 swimmers on Saturday. There were swimmers from Rockway Swim team, Goulds, Hialeah Gardens and various other clubs ie Neptune, etc. The estimate was roughly 750 people if you count the parent and friends. Apparently all were volunteers, so the costs were minimal. It was great seeing all the kids swimming, as its probably THE healthiest sport around. It was NOT financially healthy for the residents of MS tho, as we took a proverbial bath. We do not need to make a huge profit, BUT we shouldnt take a big loss either. We should AT LEAST cover our expenses. What revenue did we take in? Did it cover our expenses? If not, why not? Being a fundraiser for a private swim team should NOT mean we should NOT cover our expenses! Not at THIS meet, or the rest of the year by keeping the pool open for team practice. At the very LEAST we should break even. WHY arent we breaking even? Also a LOT of recyclable plastic bottles and aluminum cans in the garbage-apprently because Mr Gorland is not really concerned with recycling and never told the staff to fill up the available, almost-empty bins in front of the gym. There were easily 20 bags of garbage thrown away yesterday. 80% of garbage is normally recyclable- was that just an oversight? or a total lack of concern about recycling? There are several meets in Broward and Palm Beach that recycle, why not us? When will City officials become aware of the environment and the effects of recycling? EVER?

tax monies disappear AGAIN. STILL.

Is it POSSIBLE that the pool could be closed to residents for three days and a meet be held for the benefit of outside private parties at the expense of the residents (who cant use the pool during that time) and there is NO contract or protection from liability provided? I assume there are usually contracts for these meets, right? It just makes sense. Does anybody think that yet another sweetheart deal could happen WITHOUT the approval of the City Manager? How many of these meets have we hosted and paid for, but not benefitted from, this year? Past years? How long has this giveaway been going on? Its NO WONDER we are losing OVER 300k on the pool this year! More mismanagement, sweetheart deals, and freebies by the City Manager! If the standard fee for County meets is $165 an hour, why arent we charging that? Residents are paying thru the nose for a City facility that only a few can use (and NOT all the time) and getting little or NO benefit from - sounds a LOT like the Country Club. Where does that money go?

pool losses mount, officials unconcerned

What part of the pool fiasco is nonsense?- the $200,000 we are losing keeping the pool open from Sept-thru-June to indulge 6 Springs kids? or the overall $300,000+ in pool losses we are having this year at the pool? Or both? Are the numbers presented nonsense? If so, present numbers that you believe are NOT nonsense, IF you have any. Those who dont have any credible numbers to present perhaps should calm themselves down, and learn something. It is nonsensical, at least, to allow mostly non-residents and other special interests to use our pool for free, while we, the resident taxpayers, are losing $300,000 a year and footing the bill. There are liability issues when anybody uses our facilities. Without having ANY contracts delineating who is liable/ responsible for what, we are at risk. There ARE no known pool contracts. The pool is made unavailable to Springs residents for all-weekend meets that WE pay for, apparently DONT benefit from, and only add to our losses. That is nonsensical at best, and criminal at worst. Where does that rental income go? or are we providing those services FOR FREE again, at the taxpayers expense? We get NONE of the benefits, but ALL of the bills!? Sounds like the Country Club! THAT is nonsense, at best...at worst....

swim meet freebies?

Where are the numbers on the swim meet that was held this weekend? does anybody have liability insurance for these meets? What were the revenues? the expenses? Was there a contract? If so, who signed it and where are the numbers? is it possible that we host these meets for free? and then wonder why we are losing 300k per year at the pool? How many meets have we hosted this year? What are our total revenues for these meets? Total expenses? Who is the sanctioning body? Who has accurate numbers? How long have we been hosting these free meets? Who authorized them? We need ANSWERS !