Cr King has also claimed Mr Baker is undermining the anti-bullying message of mental health body headspace with his actions.

“I think Stuart’s agenda is more against the councillors and the council with a lot of things he says,” Cr King said.

“He’s made some pretty aggressive comments and with him being a person in charge of headspace making intimidating comments I think they have been counterproductive.

“He’s inferred the councillors are not working in the best interests of the community.

“He needs to be taken away from the negotiations.”

Cr King’s views came after he attended a public meeting on Thursday night over the dispute between new pools contractor Aligned Leisure and swimmers and water polo players.

At that gathering Mr Baker slammed mayors, councillors and council executives for failing to respond to concerns over the introduction of a pool lane hire fee by Aligned Leisure.

On Friday Cr King said he had spoken to mayors Kevin Mack (Albury) and Anna Speedie (Wodonga) after the meeting and he is hopeful they will meet with Aligned Leisure and pool users in the next week to negotiate.

“With some cool heads this can be ironed out and everyone gets on with their business,” he said.

Mr Baker, who only days ago replaced Cr Mack as consortium chair for headpsace on the Border, said he was simply querying councillors’ responses.

“I’m flabbergasted,” he said of Cr King’s comments.

“Where’s the bullying, I’m just asking questions of councillors, is that bullying?

“It makes a mockery of real bullying and intimidation.”

Mr Baker said the Ovens and Murray swimming and water polo associations would determine the best people to negotiate.

“There’s no way councillors such as Murray King should be suggesting who should or should not be at a meeting,” Mr Baker said.

Wodonga councillor Libby Hall, who was at Thursday night’s meeting, wants councillors, Aligned Leisure and pool users to convene to clear-up costs.

“I hope we as two councils can meet and put all the information and clarify things with the real costs for each club and all users,” Cr Hall said.

“Sometimes you’re not always right and there may be something we’ve missed.”

Cr Hall would like there to be some sort of resolution to the impasse between users and Aligned Leisure before Wodonga Council’s monthly meeting on Monday week.

“I don’t want the meeting to be a protest situation,” she said.

I have been following the current debate on the proposal of levying lane hire fees on local swimming and water polo clubs. I attended the crisis meeting at the Albion Hotel last evening where 200 or so people representing most, if not all of the local clubs likely to be impacted.

I was most impressed by the turnout and how passionate our community was about ensuring our aquatic facilities remained accessible to all people. It was great to hear the back ground and experiences from a range of people attending the meeting, many of whom belong to families that have contributed so much to the various clubs, in many forms and from which the benefits to the community is immeasurable.

My first experience working in the industry was at high school working for Dal Avos at the Albury Swimming Pool in the mid seventies and then at the Sydney University pool, before my family took on the Wodonga Swimming Pool in 1982 and soon after the Albury Swimming Pool in 1986. My role within the family was primarily in an advisory capacity and assisting whenever the contracts were put out to tender, the family carried out the real work. We retired from the industry in 2011.

Albury Wodonga has been fortunate to have, over the decades, local family operators of the aquatic facilities. I was dismayed to hear the Albury and Wodonga councils planning to combine all of the 4 swimming centres under the one management contract, this was surely the end to local family management and opened the door to outside contractors having a significant advantage in the tender. Big isn’t always better and doesn’t necessarily lead to improved services, just have a look at the current banking royal commission. It does however, involve additional costs and administration, that need to be recouped from patrons.

I don’t intend to provide a definitive history of aquatic centres, however I would like to remind council that the original swimming pool facilities at both the Albury and Wodonga pools were built largely by local volunteers along side funds provided by the community, including rates. The swimming club rooms where constructed almost entirely with labour and money contributed by members.

These facilities were constructed to ensure the community had a safe place for families to learn to swim, compete and to pursue the health benefits of regular exercise. The patronage and support of the community members behind these sporting clubs were instrumental, as they provided the revenue base to enable the facilities to continue to be viable.

A lot of these families are still involved with the swimming pools and have since been joined by many more whom have moved into the area. They all want access to swimming facilities.    

When my family managed the local swimming centres, they understood the importance of the swimming and water polo clubs in terms of their contribution to the viability of the facilities. Past councils also understood this and a key provision in the management contract was the obligation to work with the swimming and water polo clubs to enable the facilities were used to optimum levels. The contracts also specifically prohibited lane hire arrangements to ensure the facility remained available to the public when demand warranted, such as in times of extreme heat.

Members of swimming and water polo clubs accounted for approximately 75% of all season ticket sales, and it was their members that attended the pools from the very beginning of the season all the way through, ‘rain, hail or shine’ spending money at the gate and in the kiosk.

It would be fair to say the community would not have swimming facilities, to cool off in extreme weather, swimming lessons for their children, without the support of the swimming and water polo clubs.

The point was well made last evening, that swimming and water polo club members, when using the facilities, concentrate their numbers into one lane or area of the pool, to a much greater degree than general public, due to the squad training style, and therefore effectively pay a greater amount of ‘lane hire’ already. Charging a lane hire is effectively having these users pay twice for the same amenity!

At the end of the day somebody has to pay for the facilities. No doubt with the evolution of OH&S, outside contractors, industrial award conditions, heated water and rising energy and maintenance, swimming pools are more costly to operate.

It is therefore critical that more people are encouraged to utilise the facilities!

If we accept the proposition that the majority of users are members of swimming and water polo clubs and their extended family networks, it doesn’t make sense to be turning them away with such an ill-conceived and poorly implemented pricing strategy, one that will only drive people away from these critical user groups.

In the late 90’s council commissioned a consultant to report on Albury’s swimming facilities and the future of the Lavington swim centre. The consultant used had extensive experience advising on public swimming pools, and found the Albury Swim Centre was one of the most cost efficient facilities in SE Australia!

In our experience it has always been the respective council’s  decision on how much could be charged at the gate for admission to the pools and for season tickets.  It seems that as costs are rising, and perhaps the number of the general public attending dropping, the financial performance of the centres is suffering.  Council has an obligation to manage ratepayers resources, however, as most business people would understand, you don’t spring a set of unexpected price hikes and conditions on your best customers, unless of course you have a monopoly!

It must always be remembered the Albury and Wodonga swimming pools are public amenities, available to all ratepayers at their convenience. They ought not be viewed solely as a business the cost of operation to be passed on as a user pay service.  All ratepayers have equal access to the facilities, as do sporting clubs, schools and visitors whom come and spend money in the region. The costs ought to be shared across all users and ratepayers.

As a foot note, in recent conversations with key stakeholders, we cannot understand why more consultation was carried out on the pricing strategy. A very simple solution to the issue would have been to increase the fortnightly pass fee. The schedule of fees for the fortnightly passes to all three out door pools, will effectively work out less than the single pool passes for the previous season.  

The expectation placed on volunteer organistions with such short notice to commit to collecting lane hire fees from its members was doomed to fail. As a committee member of the Albury Tigers Water Polo Club, I would not support entering into such a contract. Asking our members to pay for such a steep increase in fees, will result in a significant drop off in numbers, resulting in further increased costs to the few remaining, and the very real possibility of the club becoming insolvent. Whilst we are a strong club, we work hard to keep membership fees to a minimum so that it is affordable to all families. To enter into the contract that locks us into paying lane hire fees according to a schedule would be in my view negligent.   

I am available for further consultation in respect of this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Stephen Mamouney