To the editor:
The pools have rules.
There was quite a discussion about the town pools after a recent letter the editor was seen in the Aug. 9 edition of the Manville News. Issues were brought up such as badge checks, babies in the adult pool, and a lifeguard was quoted as saying that “There are no rules at the pool.”
I was that lifeguard. I have been working at the pools for six years. Therefore, I would like to take the time to clear up all of the “problems” that certain patrons of the pools think we may have.
First of all, there is not a lifeguard on our staff that would say that the pools have no rules. The quote is not complete. It seems manipulative in order to take a clear shot at the pools. We enforce rules each and every day when necessary.
On the day that the woman was hit with a pool toy, I was working. Coming back from doing our hourly pool test, I was approached by the woman who was hit. She explained that she was hit on the side of the face with the toy and had questioned whether there were rules against it. I apologized, and informed her that it was a pool toy, and there are no rules against them. This sometimes occurs as the kids are throwing their pools toys and may accidentally throw them too hard. That was all that happened, an innocent mistake.
The toy was located on the side of the pool deck, not flung to the fence as overdramatically explained. The children who were playing with the toys were not the owners of the toys. The family who owned the toys did come and obtain their toys and headed home shortly after. This incident was nothing to be alarmed about.
I also do not know how anybody who attends the pools can say that they never see anyone being yelled at. I can guarantee that this claim of going eight years with only seeing someone yelled at once is completely false. I have guarded with Mrs. Camacho present multiple times, enforcing all of the rules and yelling at whomever necessary.
Cooper Pool does not have a supervisor there at all times. They come down multiple times during the day to check up. So, the guards have added responsibilities of checking badges and things of that sort. All of the staff is in their third year or more. After working down at Cooper, we know the people who most often swim there. That being said, there is no reason to ask every single person who walks in to show us their badges. We are already aware that they have them, even if it’s large groups. If we see newcomers that we are not sure about, we then ask them to see their badges upon entry. Just because another patron doesn’t know that swimmers have a badge doesn’t mean that we don’t.
For us to do badge checks constantly through the day would lead to an inconvenience for everyone. I don’t know how happy people would be if their “staycation” was interrupted every hour in order to get out of the pool and show us badges that we are already aware she has.
Additionally, it would be discriminatory if we were to try and tell people where they could or could not swim. Kids have every right to swim at whichever pool their parents choose, no matter their age. Puking is a common occurrence by members of all ages, not just young children. When it happens, we have procedure we need to follow, no matter how inconvenient.
As for sitting with our backs to the gate, I’m not quite getting the problem. We’re not paid to watch the gate; we’re there to watch the pool. Sitting for seven hours is not exactly comfortable. Even if we sit sideways, we are quite capable of turning our heads in order to see the entire pool.
Our policy of where badges are located will not be changed. Some swimmers do wear them on their bathing suit, while some keep them on their pool bags. Requiring every swimmer to display their badges on their suit may cause more problems than it solves. They often fall off of the swimmers and are left behind or may get sucked into the filters. They may unclip and injure the person with their sharp point. They only need to have the badges with them, not on them.
There were further issues brought up about last year which have already been addresses as a staff and quite honestly are irrelevant to bring up at this point. It seems that someone was trying to point out problems with the lifeguards that we do not actually have, for unknown reasons.
I can honestly say though, that we as lifeguards are not intimidated by anyone and not be asking anyone if they would like fries with that anytime soon. We will continue to do our jobs keeping the pools a safe environment, even if it is not blatantly obvious to each and every person.
Scott Alpizar
Manville

