Council hears pool residency and facility-rental ideas; staff to study membership, day-pass and block scheduling

Canal Winchester City Council and staff on Sept. 15 discussed pool residency rules, day-pass limits and the city's facility rental block schedule after staff shared practices from other municipalities and a resident offered suggestions.

A staff member relayed that Grove City operates early hours restricted to members and at least one hour reserved for members only at the end of the day; Grove City also limits the number of outside passes and reported that limiting day passes was associated with an increase in memberships. The staff summary noted that the Grove City pool manager reported roughly 700 patrons on busy days and that software used for pool management does not always capture identifying information for day-pass purchasers.

A resident, Adam Karschner, spoke during public comment advocating for resident-only pool hours and for digital ID options to manage day passes and guest access. He also urged reconsidering the facility-rental scheduling; council previously moved to two half-day blocks and Karschner suggested breaking blocks into three or four smaller slots to increase availability. "I would love to see that we go to resident only, figure out a way to allow guests for residents…a digital ID of sorts," Karschner said.

City Administrator Matt Peebles and staff told council they had studied reservation patterns and that the two-block rental format was chosen because of staff-time constraints and the historical peak reservation times. Peebles said staff will continue evaluating options for next season, including software improvements to better track day-pass user information and assessing whether additional rental blocks are operationally feasible.

Council asked staff to continue research, including cost and operational impacts, and to report back with proposals for membership, day-pass tracking and rental-block scheduling ahead of the next pool season.