Funding for Byram Park Pool Project Passes; Greenwich RTM Adopts New Budget

*Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the anticipated increase in the town’s mill rate.

After more than 2 ½ hours of debate on the merits of the proposed Byram Park Pool project, the Greenwich Representative Town Meeting voted approval of the proposed $411 million budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year that included a contentious $9.5 million appropriation for the Byram pool.

By a vote of 154-24 with four abstentions, the proposed budget was approved at the RTM meeting held at Central Middle School Monday night.

The proposal to remediate contaminated soil found in Byram Park and replace the aging, leaking pool that’s now off limits to swimmers this coming summer, was the only item that generated hours of debate on the merits of the project and whether town officials have been lagging in gathering preliminary architectural and design plans to suit the demands of some RTM members and Budget Overview Committee (BOC).

The BOC Chair, Lucia Jansen, proposed cutting the $9.5 million appropriation for soil remediation, design and construction of a three-pool facility and rebuilt bathrooms, concession and locker facilities in the park on Ritch Avenue West. The project has been at the discussion table for years and had a major move forward when the Junior League of Greenwich voted to earmark the project as its next public-private partnership project in town.

During Monday night’s discussion, the League’s president, Cathy Youngman said the group was ready to pull its support of the project and its commitment to raise $2.5 million of the project’s price tag.The park was opened in 1918, the site of the former Ritch Quarry that produced Byram blue point granite, and was expanded in 1975 when the town purchased the adjacent 10-acre Rosenwald estate that included the residential 40-foot pool.

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Jansen said that while the BOC supported the project the committee wanted more specific architectural and design information and that it was dissatisfied that only 30 percent of the design has been completed in the last two years. She also said the committee wanted an operations plan for the completed park and that the conditions placed upon the project by the Board of Estimate and Taxation did not have the committee’s approval.

That proposed appropriation reduction failed by a vote of 89-110-1.

Discussion then focused on a proposal jointly presented by RTM Districts 3 and 9 to up the town’s ante in an attempt to retain Junior League fund-raising support.The districts’ proposal would have increased the allocation to $4.5 million.

But that motion failed by a vote of 86-98-3, setting in motion the vote to approve the entire budget with the original $9.5 million allocation for the pool project. The $411 million budget was approved by the 154-24-4 vote.

The approval means that Greenwich taxpayers can expect their current 10.969 mill rate to increase by 2.75 percent.

The BET is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. May 18 in the Town Hall Meeting Room to set the new mill rate.