The spurning of Aligned Leisure’s offer came at a public meeting held at Albury’s Albion Hotel on Thursday night.

After the vote, various protest actions were mooted by O&M Aquatics Action Group spokesman Jack Baker subject to further discussion.

They included a week-long boycott of the pools and swimming centre patrons freezing their membership or not buying a membership.

Protests in the form of swims in the Murray River and Lake Hume or through placards and gatherings at council meetings were also floated.

Albury and Wodonga councils which jointly contracted Aligned Leisure to manage the cities pools for the next five years were the focus of much anger from those at the meeting.

Water polo figure and Coronet Jewellers owner Paul Harangozo urged the crowd to pressure councillors.

“Those councillors and those mayors don’t like it, don’t just bloody sit back, dig harder and give it to them,” he said.

Former Albury mayor Stuart Baker was also scathing.

“Councillors can’t be found, the mayors have disappeared, they won’t talk at interviews, the general managers Patience (Harrington, Wodonga) and Frank (Zaknich, Albury) have not seen them,” he said.

“We need to know how they came up with this hare-brained scheme and what they are going to do about it.”

Two councillors from each city, Murray King and David Thurley (Albury) and Libby Hall and Tim Quilty (Wodonga) attended the meeting.

Opposition to locking in a pool lane fee deal centred on costs with swimming and water polo administrators fearing for the future of clubs if they are applied.

The Wangaratta Amateur Swimming Club vice president Sue Synnot said it was misleading to say that lane fees were widespread at pools across Australia.

She said her husband Mark in Canberra for a national swimming gathering had been told clubs either paid a lane hire fee or pool admission but not both.

Swimmer and lawyer Sue Robey advised it was okay to say the Aligned Leisure deal was unacceptable, but she urged any fight to reflect the adage “united you stand, divided you fall”.

Jenny Mamouney, who along with her family administered Border pools for more than 20 years, said she could not understand why Aligned Leisure had been given a five-year contract instead of an initial one season deal.

“Stick to your guns everyone because it’s really not that hard,” she said.

“I’m sure if you get together with the councillors they will have to do something.”

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