Prairie Village considers new swimming pool rates

The Prairie Village City Council on Monday considered a plan to increase the daily admission to the Prairie Village Pool while streamlining what staff said had become a confusing menu of annual pass options.

The city’s Parks & Recreation Committee has recommended increasing the daily admission price from $7 to $10. It also recommends replacing the current slate of around a dozen annual pass option to six. In particular, the new options would all be for individuals, as opposed to the current mix of individual and family passes.

Nolan Sunderman, assistant to the city administrator, said some people were misusing family passes to include friends and others wanting to avoid paying for a daily admission. Also, staff had difficult defining “family” in cases of adoption, divorce, foster arrangements, grandchildren and other situations, which he added has caused problems for other cities as well.

The new slate of annual passes would charge $45 for an individual resident, $40 for a senior resident, and $30 for a card good for five daily resident admissions. Non-residents would pay $75 for an individual pass, $65 for a senior pass and $35 for a five-swim card. Children 12 months and younger would be free.

Some council members said they worried that the higher daily admission price might push people to visit public pools in surrounding cities, which would be between $2 and $5 cheaper.

Councilman Terence Gallagher said the $10 price required less change-making, which could speed up the admission lines during the summer. He added that by lowering the price for an individual resident pass from $79 to $45, it may encourage enough sales to offset any lost daily traffic.

The council is scheduled to discuss the prices again Dec. 21 and potentially vote on the changes Jan. 4.

While discussing annual updates to city municipal codes, Mikkelson and Mayor Laura Wassmer both expressed support for increasing the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products within city limits from 18 to 21 years of age. They noted several other Kansas City-area cities have either voted to increase the age limit or are considering an increase, part of an initiative led by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City.

Mikkelson said raising the purchasing age has shown success in keeping tobacco out of high schools and reducing tobacco use by minors, but that it has to be a uniform policy.

“It only works best if all Kansas City metropolitan areas work together,” he said.

Wassmer said several Johnson County mayors have discussed the issue and that a change will be proposed in the near future.

This story was originally published December 8, 2015 at 12:09 PM with the headline "Prairie Village considers new swimming pool rates."