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Minutes of a Meeting of the North Olmsted Parks and Recreation Commission June 1, 2009 graduated from high school. The rates have always been $20 over those years, and when she turned a freshman last year, it was $20 for her to swim on the swim team. Now, it’s not really economical as a parent to spend $400 for her to swim on the USA Swim Team and then to spend an additional $90 or $95 this year to compete in the seven weeks that the Rec Center has. The $20 that they’ve always charged the high school kids cover the cost of the t-shirts and the ribbons and any other costs used to be on the team. They could go to another Rec team to swim because many of them are less expensive than North Olmsted, for example, Mills Creek is a residential pool and they charge (I don’t know) $50 to be on that team. However, the kids don’t want to swim on those teams; they want to swim with the kids in their neighborhood – it’s a North Olmsted Eagles team. They’re not interested just for the cost in swimming on a lower cost team. We came here to ask why this change was implemented from last year to $95 for the high school kids, and how do we get it changed back. When my daughter joined the team, there were 200 kids on the swim team. As of now, there are 55 kids in the 6-14 year group, and in the high school group there is one boy and three girls (the age 16 and up). They don’t even have enough for a relay time. Ms. Troyer thought it was pretty much across the board that parents can’t…this is the first they’ve looked forward to all the years of swimming. There are new kids that join at the Rec level, too, but for all the kids that have been doing it all these years, it’s always been offered…and we were just wondering why it’s been changed and if we can change it back to get the team back up to the team back up to the numbers where we’d like to have them. Mr. Groden said that, to clarify, at least for him, Ms. Troyer was questioning why the fee went from $20 to $95? Ms. Troyer said right, for the high schoolers. It’s always been $95 for any kids from six years up to high school; but in high school, it’s a situation back, whenever they instituted it, as far as any of us know, and we have kids in college; it’s always been a perk for the high schoolers. It would keep them involved with the younger kids, and they love competing with the older kids. It would keep the high schoolers involved with the swim team. Plus, they don’t pay for the pool time or for the coaching. The coaching is basically their team mates coaching the Rec team, for the most part. Right now, they craft their coaching from 6:00 a.m. until 7:30 with the USA Team. Then at 7:30 the Rec team comes in and competes with the high schoolers. Mr. DiSalvo said that this came about since Cindy Bartko left as the Aquatics Supervisor and Chris Wetmore took over that position, so he’s doubling as the Teams Supervisor and the Aquatics Supervisor. Mr. Dailey asked if Cindy was the head coach of NEON…Ms. Troyer said she wasn’t. Mr. DiSalvo said she was involved in both the High School and NEON. Ms. Troyer said she was NOT a coach. Mr. Dailey said, “okay.” Mr. DiSalvo said that Chris is responsible for the financial aspects of managing the Aquatics Department. It came to the Rec Department’s attention when we were ready for the swim team this year, that last year people were paying $20 all the way up to $95 and $100 (in looking at last year’s records). Chris did a little research on the matter and found out that the high school kids were the ones paying $20 on this. Since Mr. DiSalvo has been here, he has never given any authorization for high school athletes’ discounts on any program. That was all done by the previous Aquatics Director. Put yourself in my position. All of a sudden, if this is hitting you without any knowledge, and this is already in place, the Rec doesn’t even offer discounts to employees here, let alone high school athletes. We do not allow any other discounts on any programs Page 2