The debate between Trenton and the company awarded a contract to manage it city pools almost cost families access to the summertime tradition.
We'd be inclined to dismiss last week's dust-up between Trenton officials and a Georgia-based management firm as just another tempest in a swimming pool, except for two important considerations.
One: our children came very close to serving as pawns in an ugly spat between adults, and two: it could happen again next year.
The mini-confrontation began July 20, just as temperatures began to take off into the stratosphere. Lifeguards at the four city-owned pools - which provide cooling relief to hundreds of children daily - walked off the job after USA Management told them their paychecks would likely be delayed.
USA Management, which earlier this year won the $185,188 contract to service the pools, complained that it had not received an expected contractual payment, due July 8, from the city.
YMCA to run Trenton pools for rest of summer
With the operators threatening to keep the pools shut until they had the cash in hand, Trenton officials wired over the money in two installments, enabling USA management to pay its workers and essentially keeping the swimming facilities open.
But the drama was far from finished, with both sides announcing plans to sever ties.
As the thermometer soared into the 80s and then into the upper 90s over the next couple of days, USA Management and city officials offered conflicting reasons for the sudden break up.
Spokeswomen for the vendor said the company was pulling out because the city posed too much of a "high risk." City officials, for their part, said the split was all about USA Management's failure to honor its contract and to live up to the terms of its bid.
Trenton: Pool debacle was about contract, not money
Among other things, Trenton officials cited an unsatisfactory life-guard-to-swimmer ratios and the policy of charging residents for swimming lessons as areas of concern.
On Thursday night, July 21, with no public discussion, City Council voted to stop doing business with USA Management and to award an emergency contract to the YMCA of Trenton, which managed the pools in 2014 and 2015, but was underbid by USA Management this year.
The local nonprofit will oversee the pools from Aug. 1 to Sept. 12, when they close for the year.
We are assuming - hoping - that the transition will go smoothly, and that no interruption of service will occur when YMCA workers take over supervision duties. And we're also hoping city leaders will be on higher alert next spring, when the bidding process opens for the 2017 season.
Let's face it, summer gets hot. With multiple branches of the Trenton Public Library closing over the years and recreational opportunities in short supply, our kids and their parents deserve to know the pools will be there for them - competently managed and drama-free.