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Public forum Wednesday will explore possibility of adding pool to YMCA
Lynda Dunbar dropped her first Mayor’s Report at the January Greencastle City Council meeting Thursday night. And it was a bombshell.
Mayor Dunbar announced that a community forum has been scheduled for 5:30-7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 17 at the Inn at DePauw, 2 W. Seminary St., for the purpose of exploring the possibility of including a pool at the new Putnam County YMCA.
A pool at the YMCA -- currently under construction off the southern extension of Calbert Way, just east of the Walmart Supercenter on the city’s East Side -- was dismissed early in the planning stages as too expensive to put in and too costly to maintain.
However, Dunbar revealed that there is a “grant opportunity we’re working on” for funding construction, adding that creation of an endowment could cover maintenance costs.
The grant leadership team from the city of Greencastle and DePauw University has identified incorporation of an indoor pool into the Putnam County YMCA facility as one of the projects that may be included in the Lilly Endowment grant proposal.
The city and DePauw are using a $250,000 planning grant awarded from the Lilly Endowment College and Community Collaboration Initiative to develop a plan to address infrastructure needs within the city of Greencastle related to housing, recreation, education and aesthetics. In the spring, the Lilly Endowment will be accepting applications for up to $25 million to support projects that result from these planning grants.
The meeting will be an open house format. Attendees may drop by at any time during the event to interact with Elevatus Architecture, who will guide conversations and receive feedback.
“There’s been a lot of talk about people wanting a pool (at the YMCA). Here’s your opportunity to do something about that,” Dunbar said, looking for feedback from the public on the idea.
The planning phase of the Lilly grant will run through early winter when the submission of the final grant occurs.
Members of the City Council, convening for the first time after seeing four personnel changes in the aftermath of the November election, appeared to embrace the pool possibility.
“That’s good news about the pool,” First Ward Councilman David Masten, returning to the Council after a 24-year hiatus, offered.
Overall, Mayor Dunbar said things have been going well since her ascension from clerk-treasurer to mayor.
“My first 11 days have gone really well,” she said. “People have been very supportive. I so appreciate that.”
Dunbar also offered some good news about the second phase of the U.S. 231 project which the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) will begin in the spring.
The mayor will meet with INDOT officials on Tuesday “to start discussion on the lovely 231 project” and when and where the contractor, Rieth-Riley Construction, will start road work that will wind its way through the downtown.
The good news is that INDOT has assured the mayor that work will not begin on the 231 section from Bloomington Street to Frazier Street on the north side until some time after the April 8 solar eclipse and the predicted impact it will likely have on travel in central Indiana that day.
“They said they wouldn’t even put out the barricades” until after the eclipse, Dunbar told the Council.
“I think they (INDOT) learned a lot in doing Bloomington Street,” she said, adding that she doesn’t expect to see frustrating delays like those experienced last summer.
Meanwhile, in the major discussion of the night, the Council voted to table the proposed UTV Ordinance (2023-7) on second reading for the second time in two months. A complete story on that issue will be included later.