Green Bay Press-Gazette Editorial Board

To the city of Green Bay: Good luck trying to get public fundraising done for any future projects.

You have poisoned the pool by asking that Colburn Park neighbors and anyone interested in a swimming facility there give $1 million toward the cost of the project and then, after they’ve fulfilled their end of the bargain, deciding to go in a different direction.

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You wanted an engaged community and then you pulled the rug out from under them.

Now you’re going to reap the rewards — a public that doesn’t trust the mayor or the City Council to follow thorugh. A public that will be reluctant, if not totally unwilling, to lead future community fundraising campaigns.

Who can blame them?

The City Council approved a $4.5 million Olympic-sized swimming pool in October 2014. The plan called for $1 million in private donations and $3.5 million in city funding. Among the amenities would be a new concessions stand, a bathhouse, bleachers, and a community room.

The city, though, put the project on hold until the $1 million was raised. At the time, Mayor Jim Schmitt said he wanted to examine cheaper alternatives, like a “neighborhood pool.” Yet two years later we’ve yet to see those alternatives.

Meanwhile, the Friends of Colburn Park Pool took on the challenge and one year later had raised the necessary $1 million.

By the time the city acted on it again, construction prices had increased.

The City Council approved a $6.8 million pool on Dec. 20, but a week later Schmitt vetoed it. Pool supporters on the City Council were unable to overturn the veto.

One takeaway from this situation: This is our democracy in action. And it is.

But the real takeaway should be this: The City Council and mayor will face greater opposition in any future public-private venture like this. Goodwill among the public is fractured. Any scrap of goodwill among opponents on the City Council is buried under a mudslide of accusations of political payback.

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Schmitt now faces the task of trying to appease the big donors, like Bernie Dahlin, owner of Nichols Paper Products, who donated $150,000 of his $300,000 pledge toward an Olympic-sized pool in Colburn Park. He wants his money back and is willing to sue to get it.

He told Press-Gazette reporter Adam Rodewald he will “never, ever give anything to the city again” because he can’t trust what the money will be used for.

Schmitt’s efforts to placate large donors needs to be done. But what about those for whom their $10, $20, $100 donation is a big sacrifice? They’re not going to sue or get their money back, so they're likely out of luck.

We endorsed the proposal and the fact that it would bring swim meets to the neighborhood as well as meet the needs of a community pool.

Given the recent actions of the mayor and the council, we’re interested in seeing the mayor’s proposal for some sort of aquatic facility and we’d like to know how he’ll make whole those who donated specifically for an Olympic-sized pool.

And we’d like to see how the city is going to fund it. Two years after approving a plan and encouraging the community to get donations for a new facility, we’re even further from a solution for the aging, deteriorating Colburn Pool.