Arlington Heights should rethink pool policy

The Arlington Heights Village Board made the wrong decision on June 1 when it came to the question of whether to repeal an ordinance requiring pool attendants at semiprivate pools. Voting to repeal 8-1, only Trustee Zyck understood that it should be the responsibility of the Village to prevent the low probability but high magnitude tragedy that occurs if a child drowns at an apartment complex or condo association pool because there was no attendant or lifeguard there to reduce that risk.

As someone who doesn't believe in a lot of regulation, this is one area it seems obvious to me that local government should assert itself. Unfortunately, the Board also received inadequate information from its staff, which mixed together pool and lake incidents in its presentation. It also didn’t have any comparable information from other municipalities that haven't had this rule in place, so we don't know if the absence of the ordinance has been more harmful or not. It's like running a science experiment without a control variable.

At the very least, the Board should have tabled the issue until it could get more comparative information, especially since it has a $225 Million budget and the personnel to properly research it.

Hopefully, as more information is gathered and presented to them over the next several months, the Board can re-evaluate the current lack of protection it now evidently endorses for some of the children of our community.

Frank J Biga III

Arlington Heights