With summer fading into fall, the Brighton Town Hall Pool is now closed—but only for the winter. A few months ago, that closure could have been permanent.
In February, details of a modernization project for the Brighton town hall building were first mentioned publicly in Supervisor William Moehle’s 2024 State of the Town address. He also said the town pool would be replaced by a new splash pad.
Moehle noted the pool was “nearing the end of its useful life.” In subsequent meetings, additional concerns were raised, such as accessibility, attendance numbers, upkeep and staffing costs. Also, a slow post-pandemic recovery fueled the desire for a splash pad instead of a pool.
Many town residents, however, heard of the plans through a column written by Moehle in the July edition of Brighton Connections. The article sparked an uproar. Residents who opposed the move created a Save the Pool group on social media, made public comments at meetings, and collected over 1,100 signatures on an online petition in August.
“It was buried in the plans to renovate the town hall,” says Rachel Stein Rosner, a Brighton resident and member of the group. “And the building is going to be a net-zero (carbon) building, which is fantastic, but this part about the pool and the splash pad were just sort of in there. Nobody talked about them publicly; nobody really knew that they were in there because who goes through the town’s website on a regular basis and digs through committee meetings?”
The group’s concerns were varied but mainly related to losing a popular “third space” (an accessible public area outside work and home) that provided health, fitness, and skill benefits at a time when summer temperatures keep climbing. They disagreed with the town government’s argument about accessibility in relation to a splash pad and were upset at a perceived lack of transparency and communication.
Town officials see a splash pad as a low-maintenance, accessible solution to pool cost and staffing issues. And they defend their communications with residents, saying information delays often occur with large-scale renovation projects.
In early September, the town announced that the pool would not close; instead, it would remain open with a new splash pad to join it. The new plan was made possible through an infusion of $1.2 million in grant money secured by state lawmakers.
“Municipal pools are a great resource for communities. They are inexpensive to visit, a great way to stay cool in the summer, and excellent exercise for people of all ages,” says Assemblymember Sarah Clark, echoing many points brought up by pro-pool residents. “We also live in a community surrounded by water, so learning to swim is vital.”
Questions remain, however. While some details are settled, others such as timeline, staffing and exact dimensions are dependent on both the town hall renovations and what bids come in.
“The decision felt like it was swept under the rug, it was hidden away,” says Lauren Mesi, another Brighton resident and member of Save the Pool. “So, that’s a concern, that it will continue this way. That this could all happen again.”
“We’ve always prided ourselves on the transparency of how we conduct business,” Moehle contends. “As we talked about the pool and the splash pad, we heard loud and clear that members of the community wanted us to find a way to save the pool.”
New plans
With the new funds, Moehle says, the pool will remain at its location, with some upgrades to the pool office building. The new splash pad will be across the pedestrian sidewalk in an open field that abuts backyards of homes on Seminole Way.
That field will also be a new playground location as the old space will be occupied by geothermal pumps that will power the new town hall building.
“It’s near and dear to my heart because I remember my daughter playing soccer on that field back before we had the kind of facilities we have today,” Moehle recalls.
He says details in the allocation of money for the different parts of the project will depend on bids the town of Brighton receives. Similarly, the timeline for completion of the entire endeavor is unclear at this stage and depends on progress with the town hall renovation.
“I want to stress this is still at the draft stage, so the last thing I want to do is overpromise and underdeliver on the timeline,” he says. “At this point, it really is too early to know what the timeline will be or whether we will even be able to be open, because we don’t want to put anyone at danger during the construction.”
The pavilion adjacent to the pool will be renovated through a separate improvement project.
The lack of details is unlikely to sit well with Save the Pool, whose members say there has been a rewriting of history already when it comes to timelines. The group believes its concerns were ignored during town board meetings, on social media, and in private meetings.
“We were told it was already decided, it’s done, there’s no point in fighting about it because we’ve made the decision,” Lisa Fybush, a Brighton resident, says about her meetings with town board members. “Then when state money came in, they started reversing course and saying ‘Oh, we’re looking at all options.’”
“(Moehle) was called out publicly more than once, by a group of people who live here who said ‘Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?’” Rosner says. “But he can’t let himself appear to be wrong, so he walks things back.”
The town supervisor maintains that no plans were ever set in stone for the closure of the pool, notwithstanding his comments in the 2024 State of the Town address and the July issue of Brighton Connections. He does say internal discussions of the pool in relation to upkeep and staffing costs were continuous and that looking at a splash pad was a natural result of those discussions.
Similarly, Moehle says the support received from Clark and state Sen. Jeremy Cooney also was a natural part of a continuous discussion. He points to other improvement projects, such as the farmer’s market and a major sidewalk project along Elmwood and East avenues, as items where their help was invaluable.
“I first heard about the pool closing from a friend who was planning to speak at the public input session,” says Clark, who is a competitive swimmer. “But (I) soon heard about it from quite a few Brighton constituents contacting my office and on social media.”
Making a splash
Among the main factors Moehle cites for supporting a splash pad over the pool is upkeep costs. The pool is an outdoor, 2,700-square-foot swimming area with a maximum depth of 5.5 feet. According to a former senior pool recreation supervisor, who asked to remain anonymous, the base is made of gunite.
Gunite is a concrete-like substance that is mixed with water just before being sprayed in an excavated hole. It creates a thick, solid structure that is more durable than other materials such as fiberglass or vinyl-lined pools. However, this long life is possible only through proper care, requiring periodic upkeep such as acid washing or retiling.
Save the Pool residents say their research revealed that the lifespan of a gunite pool can be as long as 100 years. One municipal pool that Mesi found in West Seneca that was similarly saved from destruction was 50 years old.
“People were referring to their pool, who are pool experts, as a baby,” she says. “Anyone that doesn’t know better hears that its life is up and figures, ‘Oh, well, I guess we can’t save it,’ when that’s not true.”
“They hadn’t done any studies or gotten any estimates for what the pool renovations would cost,” adds Fybush. “It felt like they were just sort of making up numbers and telling us the pool is more expensive.”
Moehle says he currently does not know how much renovations will cost, but will share that information when bids come in.
“The pool is 36 years old and while it’s gotten routine maintenance, 36 years is a long time for what is basically a backyard pool,” he says. “It needs significant work.”
In addition, Moehle cites lagging attendance numbers brought on by the pandemic, combined with staffing issues and costs, as reasons for supporting a splash pad. It would instead have more of a “playground model,” where adults are responsible for looking after children, saving on the challenge of hiring lifeguards.
“We’re seeing the difficulties all over of hiring lifeguards. And we’ve actually dramatically increased the pay of our lifeguards, because we want them to be taken care of, but it’s another added expense,” Moehle says.
A lifeguard’s hourly rate has increased from $13 to $14 (depending on seniority) in 2021 to $19 to $21 in 2024. However, town recreation programs’ actual total wages have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, according to the most recently available budget documents. (In 2019, actual appropriated wages totaled $99,000. In 2022, the total was $59,000.)
Moehle also says “attendance at the pool is still not back to where it was before the pandemic. Last year total resident attendance was about 1,600, which, if you’re only counting the full days the pool was open, then that’s about 40 visitors a day.” But use of the pool can spike. A July 12 Brighton town recreation announcement thanked pool attendees who “set a record for attendance at the Brighton Town Hall Pool last week.”
Concerns about accessibility also have been a factor for town officials. “The splash pad, of course, is at grade, so that will be accessible to people with mobility issues,” Moehle says. It is an argument he has used in public meetings as well.
Rosner doesn’t buy it.
“They were very ableist statements about people of all ages, people with mobility issues, would have easier access to the splash pad. Are you kidding?” she retorts. “A person in a wheelchair is literally never going to go to a splash pad because it will ruin their wheelchair. A person with mobility issues is not going to stand up in a splash pad. They are going to be in the pool, because it’s more appropriate for them.”
Fybush contends that teenagers, including her son, who spoke at a public comment session, have little interest in a splash pad, since it seems targeted mostly at young children and their families.
“(Brighton) is a tween and teen recreational desert,” Fybush says. “There are a lot of restaurants in Twelve Corners plaza that have restrictions on how many teenagers can come in and which hours they can come in. The rec center and library events are generally aimed at younger kids, so that doesn’t give them a lot. (The pool) was an oasis for us in the summer.”
The shallow end
Mesi, who has young children, says she wants them to be able to learn how to swim. Living near a large body of water and with drowning deaths on the rise, she knows that knowledge could be lifesaving.
The Brighton pool, nestled along major routes like Elmwood with a $3 entry price for residents, is a cheap and convenient option for her family. (The $40 season pass is no longer offered, she notes with disappointment.)
“This is one of the last outdoor pools left. It’s like our own hidden gem,” she says.
However, Mesi was unaware of the pool’s existence until it almost went away for good. And swim classes through the pool, which used to be offered, are no longer available. The only aquatic program currently listed on the Brighton recreation page is a “Water Exercise Class” that takes place at the senior community, St. John’s Meadows.
These factors, along with the enthusiasm for a splash pad, are part of the reason why Save the Pool group members believe there has been a disinvestment in the pool and aquatic programming in general.
Before the former senior pool recreation supervisor was let go in August 2020, programming was robust, even during the winter. Swimming and water aerobics classes as well as water polo club, open swim, a “Splash into Summer” party, pool parties and more were offered at both the outdoor town pool and indoor high school pool. Although the former employee is sad they no longer exist, they are proud of the progress they did make while employed at the pool.
“The pool’s visibility has decreased over the years, and programming has suffered as a result. Reinstating swim programs, events, and community initiatives is crucial,” a statement from the Save the Pool group reads. “To achieve this, the town should hire a program director responsible for organizing swim lessons, community events, and safety programs to revitalize the pool as a hub of activity.”
This year, there were six seasonal authorized lifeguard positions, with one supervising lifeguard. (There were 28 total authorized positions in the Recreation Programs sub department.) Moehle says the senior lifeguard is an employee who has worked their way up through the ranks to oversee the other positions now.
Moehle adds that staffing costs and requirements will be judged later when further progress is made on the pool. He is supportive of programming, however, mentioning that both birthday celebrations (previously held at the pavilion area) and swim classes were not possible because of staffing gaps.
He also says the concept of an aquatics director is a misconception, noting that the town has never had a job title with that name. (According to budget documents, “senior pool recreation supervisor” was an employed position until 2020.)
For Rosner, who unsuccessfully ran for town board in 2023, it comes back to an issue of communication and transparency.
“If you look at the (2022) recreation study, 47 percent of people who were surveyed wanted a pool and 39 percent wanted a splash pad,” she says, referring to a feasibility study for a new recreation center. “His decision to shut the pool was made literally ignoring the input of the public.”
Rosner wants the town’s communication with its residents to improve. Instead of a newsletter or social media feeds, she suggests email updates or opt-in text messages.
“Communication and transparency are two sides of the same coin. How can you be transparent if you don’t communicate?” Rosner says.
“There was a lot of support for a splash pad,” Moehle responds. “But we also heard very clearly that people wanted the pool to be renovated. That public dialogue, being able to hear what the public thinks, is really important. That’s the beauty of local government.”
Jacob Schermerhorn is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and data journalist. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected].
A nearly 2,500 word article that likely misses the real reason that Brighton is likely dumping the “Brighton Town Hall Pool.” According to Brighton’s “Climate Action Plan” one of the town’s key climate goals is to “decarbonize municipal building heating systems.” A pool of the vintage of the Brighton Town Hall Pool is likely heated with natural gas which is necessary to heat the pool to a minimum of 82 degrees or so which is about as low as you can go for a pool like this. Retiring the pool is in line with the town’s “Climate Action Plan.”
And if you listen to the late-August town board meeting referenced in this article, it sounds like the plan to dump the pool has been brewing for some time. If one of the speakers at the meeting is accurate, the Senior Pool Recreation Supervisor that was let go in August of 2020 was responsible for pool maintenance tasks that may or may not have been completed in their absence.
Blowing off required yearly maintenance, failing to promote the existence of the pool on the town website and eliminating personnel which would have had the opportunity to schedule parties at the pool, etc. seem like intentional actions. The sum of these actions helped drive attendance down, and made it much easier for Bill Moehle to claim that usage of the pool had yet to recover from pre-pandemic levels. When you de-emphasize the resource, that’s exactly what you would expect to happen. Bill seems to have intentionally greased the skids for the public pool’s demise.
Another point that deserves examination here is if elimination of the pool’s annual operating expenses – lifeguards, etc. – were used to conveniently cover for the fact that the installation of the geothermal heating system in the town hall was going to be much more expensive than the installation of a natural gas heating system or something similar. Geothermal systems are typically much more expensive to install than the alternative, and killing the pool may have helped make the numbers work, or at least not make them stand out.
One last point that was not mentioned in the article is that the August town board meeting seemed to reveal that the pool will not open in 2025 regardless of the long-term plan. The amount of construction and destruction necessary to install the geothermal heating system will turn the pool area into a construction site. This is another cost of chasing the town’s Climate Action goals.