ALDERGROVE STAR STAR ALDERGROVE STAR STAR ALDERGROVE Your Hometown Community Newspaper for over 53 Years
| Thursday, March 1, 2012
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IN PURSUIT OF A YEAR-ROUND SWIMMING POOL
‘We’re going to ask for the moon — and go with that,’ activists say By JANET INGRAM-JOHNSON Aldergrove Star
Tired of listening to herself complain about a lack of a year-round swimming pool in Aldergrove, Joanne Nicolato decided to do something about it. Enter the Aldergrove Pool Committee, a group of 12 swim enthusiasts whose ambition is to have an indoor pool and recreation centre “completely built in the core of Aldergrove before October 2014.” Nicolato’s family is part of Aldergrove’s Million-Dollar Neighbourhood reality-TV project, featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network. The show (still airing) aims to help 100 local families increase their collective net worth by an average of $100,000 a week over 10 weeks. “When I started the Million-Dollar Neighbourhood thing, I just did it for the finances,” Nicolato says. “But in the whole process, I found a huge sense of community spirit and I thought, I’m going to do something for this town. I’m tired of listening to myself complain, ‘Where’s the pool? Where’s the pool?’ There needs to be one here. “I thought, I’m going to make it happen.’ The new-pool idea isn’t new, of course. It’s been on local wish-lists for a long time. “In 2007, [Township of Langley planners] had a couple of possible pool options and a day at the Kinsmen Centre for people to come and look at them,” she says. “I did not like any of them because our family is a swim-club family and what Aldergrove needs is something they can do year-round and it didn’t seem as if this was happening. “When the planners left with those proposals, that was it. Nothing happened.” Then in 2011, the artificial swimming pool at Aldergrove Lake Park was shut down. So, with all the public fanfare over the MillionDollar Neighbourhood show, Nicolato thought: “Aldergrove is going to be in the limelight and we need [a new swimming facility] now.” She looked around at her Million-Dollar “family” and was amazed by what “all these people can accomplish in five or six days.” “It was like, ‘We can do this. We can totally do this.’ You take these Million-Dollar people and you spread them into the rest of the com-
ALDERGROVE STAR PHOTO
Members of the Aldergrove Pool Committee (L-R) Dave Miller, Laurie Miller, Cathi Hiscock, Andrew Hiscock, Joanne Nicolato, Dennis Nicolato and Rebecca Nicolato, at the site of the former Aldergrove Elementary School, still owned by the Langley School District, where a new swimming pool and rec centre might one day go. He welcomes the initiative of the pool com- involved in something . . . we know Aldergrove’s munity and we will get something done.” The pool committee is conducting an online mittee but points to its potential $20-million needed a pool, like for ever, but it’s having the survey (www.aldergrovereccenter.ca) and on cost and Aldergrove’s smaller population base resources to pay for it — that’s the number one Saturday supporters will be at four local stores of around 11,000 residents. thing — and, with the population we have, it’s a — the Otter Co-op, Save-On Foods, Extra Foods “I’ve been working on this project for a num- challenge. That’s why we did the revamp of the and Safeway — to survey shoppers who might not ber of years and it’s not an easy one. It’s going to downtown plan, trying to get the density up.” The pool committee doesn’t quibble with wish to go online. The survey deadline is April 30. take some really creative work to find a way to The group will be hosting an open meeting finance it and pull it off. Long’s $20-million ballpark figure — “it’ll be a “We need to get a design that people will buy lot,” acknowledges Nicolato — and knows it has at the Aldergrove Legion on March 12 (7:30 p.m.). And they plan a delegation to Township into. Council has money in the budget for a revamp an uphill fundraising fight. of the design . . . We’ve identified a location [the “I think we can do the impossible,” says council during the month. Township Coun. Bob Long made the idea now-closed Aldergrove Elementary School that is Nicolato. “We’re going to ask for the moon — of a new community pool part of his re-election owned by the Langley School District]. and then go with that.” “It’s always nice when the community gets platform last November. COMMENT, DETAILS — Page 6
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