The City of Virden is without their municipal pool this summer and for the future. Virden Mayor George Murphy has taken to social media in recent months explaining why the city council decided to permanently close the pool back in February.
In a social media post today, Murphy showed the public that the pool had been operating at loss of over $36,000 on average annually since the 2010-2011 fiscal year for the city.
Murphy explains that the municipal pool was never intended to be a revenue stream for the city, but the current city council voted in February that they would no longer be able to financially support the operations.
Murphy highlighted the numerous benefits of the pool to area families over the year, and said that the pool was studied by the current council over a year for a way to make it financially viable, but was unable to come up with a way for it to stand on its own.
In a post in April, Murphy said that the pool’s current condition has deteriorated and is in need of a new liner and plumbing and the original pump of the pool is beyond its operational life. Murphy also cited the new minimum wage laws enacted by the state that would create more insurmountable debt to the city.
Murphy said it’s a sad loss to the community because of the hard work and dedication of many from the Virden community over the years, but the bottom line for the current council was finances.