TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON—The Township Council voted, 4-1, at its budget hearing of June 24 to support a $1 million bond for the acquisition of the private 6.39-acre Washington Township Swim and Recreation Club on Ridgewood Boulevard North.
The purchase was estimated to cost taxpayers about $18 per year for the bond’s 20-year payback period, though those figures have been questioned.
The issue of whether to purchase the private club has roiled recent council meetings, and been an on-and-off topic over the years as the club dealt with financial problems and difficulties dealing with bond holders and declining pool memberships.
(See “Swim club seeks a way forward: Dragging unpaid taxes, stalled reimbursements,” Pascack Press, Sept. 30, 2019.)
On June 21, the council voted, 3-2, to submit a $1 million offer on the club. According to Township Attorney Kenneth Poller, the council needed a 4-1 majority to approve bonding for $1 million.
At that meeting, although three council members voted in favor, councilmen Steven Casio and Michael DeSena opposed the $1 million purchase offer and said they were unlikely to change their vote.
In advance of the June 24 meeting, Calamari took to Facebook to make a last-minute case for the purchase. He invoked President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 call for landing Americans on the moon by the end of that decade and tackling other national priorities “not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone.”
(See “Town pool purchase sunk? Calamari fights back for land buy as a moon shot,” Pascack Press, June 24, 2021.)
Ultimately, DeSena voted June 24 to approve the purchase offer on the Township Swim and Recreation Club for $1 million and bond for the funds: $600,000 to purchase the club and an agreement to invest $400,000 in capital improvement funds over two years to improve the facilities, which members said are in need of significant repair and renovations.
Calamari, who has said the town has no feasibility studies on the club, said June 24 that the town was agreeing to a two-year effort to operate it and if that operation cannot break even at that point it likely would close.
Many of those calling in support of the purchase said how much they looked forward to a pool.
For most members, including DeSena—who is challenging Calamari for the gavel this year—preserving the open space that the pool property encompasses was the main reason to acquire the site. Doing so will prevent a future developer from purchasing it and possibly placing a high-density development there, members said.
Preventing local overdevelopment as well as an influx of school-age children to the township’s regional school district were cited again and again as urgent reasons to purchase the property, preserve it, and keep it for town use.
After Calamari agreed and Poller said he could structure a township swim club pool utility board to include 50% of members appointed by council and 50% by the mayor, along with other stipulations, DeSena changed his vote.
He noted he was “contemplating all my pros and cons going through my head. [I’m] really not in favor of running the pool but if that’s what it’s got to be for two years, I’ll vote yes.”
Following a three-hour meeting June 24 that featured a majority of callers voicing support for the swim club’s acquisition, and nearly every caller opposed to the prospect of a future multifamily, high-density development on the site, DeSena questioned Calamari mayor on concerns about the ultimate costs to taxpayers.
He noted his research on town pools in Hillsdale and Woodcliff Lake showed the costs closer to $106 yearly as opposed to the mayor’s reported figure for bonding the $1 million purchase price at $18 per year per homeowner.
DeSena said the $106 annual cost he calculated included taxes that the private swim club will no longer be paying ($34,874), which equal $10 per homeowner per year; the $1 million property purchase plus “soft costs” such as related fees equals $20 per taxpayer; annual operating expenses of $200,000 divided by about 3,575 taxpayers equals $56 per year; plus $1 million that he estimates for additional club improvements comes to another $20 per taxpayer annually.
He said the $106 per taxpayer annual cost for pool acquisition was much more realistic than the $18 annual cost cited by the mayor and other council members.
DeSena disagreed with Council President Stacey Feeney over how many members would be required for the swim club to break even and told the mayor that he also did not want to have DPW vehicles parked at the site should it be purchased.
Calamari challenged him to come up with an alternate site for DPW vehicles. DeSena listed none.
Currently, DPW vehicles and equipment are stored behind the Valley Bank, in the municipal lot, and on 35 spaces rented at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church leased for two years at a cost of $60,600.
Councilman Tom Sears suggested purchasing a surplus military tent to hide any vehicles or equipment stored at a future swim club site.
At the meeting’s start, DeSena said he would vote for the swim club’s acquisition if the agreement could note that the pool would be immediately shut down, that no DPW trucks would be parked there, and that the offer be for $1 million instead of $600,000, plus $400,000 slated for future capital improvements.
Moreover, he said he wanted a feasibility study to be conducted before 2022.
However, none of those conditions appeared to be in a draft motion read by Poller and presented to the council near the close of a nearly three-hour budget session.
The vote was 4-1 to approve the $1 million offer, future bonding, and the future pool utility board’s make-up.
Cascio again voted against the swim club offer and bonding.
A majority of residents calling in June 24 urged the council to purchase the club and spoke about the need for children to have a local community gathering place, plus the recreational field at the swim club that could be used by local teams and athletes in a town that needs more rec space.
One resident, Joseph Scalia, said the pool and acreage represented a “significant opportunity” for the council and warned them that not acquiring it might mean more development there should it be purchased by a developer.
He said $1 million was a “small price to protect our future” and noted the land should be preserved no matter what ultimately happens with the pool.
Residents Antony Udina and Michael Lemken both mentioned high-density housing in Park Ridge as being undesirable and not wanting something similar.
Udina said the council “should not allow overdevelopment in our town.”
Lemken cited “overdevelopment” in downtown Park Ridge and Emerson as “terrible.”
Lemken said he did not want overdevelopment in the township and asked Cascio and DeSena to reconsider their votes against acquiring the swim club.
Although unaddressed on June 24, it appeared that current pool bond holders would be reimbursed by the swim club when the swim club is sold. According to its website, the club operated as a private, nonprofit entity 501(c)7.
Said the club in a July 2019 post, “The simple fact is, membership is down and we can only refund bonds when there is money available to do so.”