Committee will look at proposals for a YMCA Old Bridge official notes urgency in getting a pool for high school swimmers

Staff Writer

By sue m. morgan

Committee will look at
proposals for a YMCA
Old Bridge official notes urgency in getting a pool for high school swimmers

OLD BRIDGE — Moving forward to bring a YMCA recreational center to the municipality and providing local swim teams with a place to practice, Township Council President Reggie Butler has formed a committee to work with organizations that have presented the council with proposals for such a facility.

Butler named the committee members at the council’s Jan. 28 public meeting. The committee includes a mix of municipal officials, a Board of Education member and individuals with interests in meeting the township’s recreational needs.

The committee consists of Democratic councilmen G. Kevin Calogera (Ward 4), Dennis Maher and Edward Testino (both councilmen at-large); Republican Councilwoman Lucille Panos (Ward 6); Old Bridge police Sgt. Robert Weiss, who also coaches the Old Bridge High School swim team; Janet Phillips, a recreational committee member; school board member Albert DiRocco; and W. Thomas Badcock, the township’s director of parks, recreation and social services.

Badcock was added to the committee at the recommendation of Mayor Barbara Cannon.

"We want to have anybody who could provide input," Butler said.

Butler stressed the urgency of building a recreational center with a swimming pool in the next two years — especially because the Old Bridge High School swim team has no pool in the township in which to practice. At present, the team must travel 30 minutes to use the facilities at the YMCA of Western Monmouth County, Freehold Township. Often, the team must wait until other teams finish using the pool there before it can begin practicing, Butler said.

The committee’s purpose is to negotiate with the YMCAs that have presented proposals to the council, Butler said.

The council is scheduled to hear a presentation from Cynthia Joy, director of the YMCA of Western Monmouth County, at its next public meeting on Monday night.

That YMCA is one of three under consideration to help build and ultimately manage a similar facility within the township.

The others are the YMCA of Metuchen/Edison and the Community YMCA, based in Red Bank, Monmouth County.

"They (the committee) will look at the location, the funding mechanism and engineering," Butler said.

After reviewing the proposals, the committee will then report its findings and suggestions to the council, Butler said.

Maher, a leading proponent of the proposed community center, told the council that the committee will be meeting with the chief executive officers of the interested YMCAs to review their proposals.

"We’ll have to commit by resolution," Maher said.

Maher cautioned that all the packages should be considered carefully without appearing to commit to any particular offer. He noted a previous offer from the Community YMCA in which that organization had offered to survey residential support for building the community center.

"We would be distancing ourselves from the other Ys," Maher said, describing his and others’ decision against allowing the survey at a Dec. 3 meeting. At that time, the council voted 5-2 along party lines to turn down the Community YMCA’s offer to conduct the survey at no cost to the township. Cannon, along with Ward 5 Councilman Richard Greene and then-Ward 2 Councilman Roman Sohor, all of whom are Republicans, had voiced support of the survey, stating that it was nonbinding.

Maher also reported that representatives of a YMCA organization in Perth Amboy who had previously expressed interest in submitting a proposal to Old Bridge will not be doing so. That organization, Maher said, has instead decided to build a facility in its own community.