Villa Park pulls plug on aging Lufkin Pool
The end is coming for Villa Park's Lufkin Pool.
Village trustees on Monday voted 4-3 to authorize acceptance of a proposal from American Demolition Corp. of Elgin to demolish the 64-year-old pool and its related structures. The project will cost about $77,700.
The vote came less than a week after a nonbinding ballot question found Villa Park voters aren't willing to spend money to save the facility at 1000 Ardmore Ave.
"I can't ignore the vote that was taken last Tuesday," Village President Al Bulthuis said.
Nearly 53 percent of voters on April 2 said no to the advisory question asking if they support spending up to $1 million to fix Lufkin Pool.
"The people voted," Bulthuis said. "That's what we're all about."
Bulthuis joined trustees David Cilella, Donald Kase and Chris Aiello in supporting the resolution. Nick Cuzzone, Cheryl Tucker and Robert Wagner voted against.
The decision upset pool supporters who said the board had promised to table the decision until June. They say the vote got moved to Monday because two new trustees - Christine Murphy and Kevin Patrick - were elected and support saving the pool.
"It's disappointing that they brought the motion up from their originally promised date of June to April," resident Tom King said minutes after the decision. "It's very dishonest because it was made public that they would table this until June. They brought it up to April so this existing board can vote for it and not let the newly elected officials vote on it."
Lufkin Pool has been a subject of discussion on and off since November 2017, when village trustees rejected two separate repair proposals that could have allowed the facility to open for another year.
Cuzzone said he supports demolishing Lufkin Pool. Still, he voted "no" on Monday night, saying the board should have kept its promise to make the decision in June.
"Looking at the record, the record shows we voted to push it to June," he said.
While Tucker opposed the resolution, she said delaying the vote a couple of months wouldn't change the fact there's no money to repair the pool.
She said she must honor the wishes of voters who don't want the village spending money on the pool.
But Ben Silver, an attorney for the Citizen Advocacy Center in Elmhurst, said the ballot question didn't provide the full picture.
"It was a very specific, narrow question about $1 million in new property taxes," Silver said. "There's indication that they could keep the pool open for substantially less. So voting that you don't want $1 million in increased property taxes doesn't mean that you don't want to keep the pool open if it's going to be $200,000."
The pool sat dormant last summer after trustees chose not to pay $200,000 to make enough repairs for it to open for one more season. Villa Park residents instead could swim at Jefferson Pool.
Roughly 90 people attended Monday's meeting and 14 addressed the board to speak in favor of saving Lufkin.
Some reacted to how the village has been floating the idea of building a new pool and/or recreation center. They said the project won't happen anytime soon. Part of the reason is one potential funding option fell through when Villa Park Elementary District 45 voted not to support the extension of a special taxing district for 12 more years.
"All trustees, do you want your legacy to be that you voted to demolish Lufkin without having a plan in place to replace it?" resident Wendy Granrath said.
Bulthuis said the village has other challenges that must be addressed, including pension obligations and flooding.
"Somewhere along the line you have to make the decision," Bulthuis said. "Are you going to put the money into something that needs major repairs? Or do you go and look for a new facility?"
Bulthuis said he's committed to finding a way to build a new facility. But he said the effort could take another eight years.