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Hampstead council questioned on pool fees

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , ,

By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban

Hampstead resident Adriana Decker questioned council last week on the town’s increased pool fees, which have been previously justified as a way to keep property taxes as low as possible.

Residents had complained in 2023 about a daily pass for the pool at Hampstead Park being $15 for residents three years old and up, with one resident saying it would cost $75 to bring her family. In late July, the price structure was changed to $10 for residents 18 and under, and $35 for a family pass as long as all members could provide proof they were Hampstead residents. The daily pass price has been $25 for non-residents.

Decker, who was a prominent voice in principle against the redevelopment of an apartment building on Côte St. Luc Road in 2019, said that according to statistics, 4,692 daily passes for the pool were purchased when the price was lower, with income totalling $30,727.

“In 2024, there were only 837 tickets sold, which is insane how increasing the price has limited access to the pool, and the total revenue was only $17,431,” she would. “Why have we increased the price of the single ticket if it hasn’t increased revenue? If you look at the family pass in 2022, the revenue was $23,944 and in 2024, it was $28,240. The difference is nothing. This has decreased the amount of people who can enjoy the pool. I’m one of those people. Please have a discussion about this.”

Mayor Jeremy Levi said the intent of the current fees was never to limit access to the the pool.

“I understand that might be the appearance of it, it was certainly not the intent,” the Mayor explained. “The intent is to try to be as fiscally responsible as possible. Even though there may not be a significant change in revenue, there is a significant change in the operating costs. We do not need as many lifeguards, because there’s not as many people” using the pool.

Levi also said the pool does not need as much maintenance and upkeep as previously.

“What has the difference [in savings] been, does anyone know?” Decker asked.

Levi said he did not have that information.

“I’ve had many discussions with many people — when I grew up in this town, the pool was very different than what it is today,” the Mayor explained. “The neighbourhood was very different. We issue permits for about 12 private pools every year now. In terms of this mandate, that’s about 50 to 60 new private pools, which means 50 to 60 families no longer using the public pool.”

The Mayor said the town is trying to find a balance.

“I know that when we had day passes of $2 or $3 for non-residents, a very big part of the users were non-residents and there was a very big opinion that if we were losing $100,000 on the upkeep of the pool, why we are we subsidizing it to non-residents? We wanted to make it amenable, where it’s geared towards residents. Everything we do, our interest is for the residents. Not to limit access, for sure not.”

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Mother, pediatric surgeon warn of drowning risk

Local Journalism Initiative / / / , , , ,

By Chelsey St-Pierre
The Suburban

“I turned around for just a few seconds to grab my water bottle when my son shouts out to me that his sister is at the bottom of the pool,” Catherine Couture, a mother of four and former CPE educator, from the off-Island suburb of Coteaux-du-Lac located just a few minutes West of Terrasse-Vaudreuil, explained to The Suburban. “A few seconds before she was having lunch with her siblings.”

Luckily in this case, Couture’s nearly two-year old daughter survived, and a study recently released by Dr. Hussein Wissanji, a pediatric surgeon at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, depicts just how lucky this family was.

According to the statistics revealed by the study, it is estimated that one child will be brought into an emergency room from drowning, or near drowning on each day of the summer, in Quebec this year.

Wissanji says that parents and guardians need to view water the same way they view fire. “You would not leave your child alone with an open fire,” Wissanji explains as he encourages parents to change their view on water based activities. According to Wissanji’s study, one in ten children brought into the ER due to no supervision or a gap in supervision when playing near water will die of drowning with the majority of them being toddlers.

In Couture’s case, two mothers were present at the play date held at her pool to supervise six children. When the children paused for their lunch break, their floaters were removed while they were on deck and eating.

“When I turned around after my son called out to me, I just saw her pink bathing suit and her blond hair floating at the bottom of the pool,” Couture explained to The Suburban emotively. Couture jumped in to the pool to pull her daughter out of the water and when she got out with her toddler in her arms, the girl was conscious, but the nightmare was not over. “I felt her body filled with water, it is hard to explain, she was just full of water.”

Moments later, the toddler threw up a “large” amount of water, according to Couture’s account. As it turns out, this was the second stroke of luck for the little girl. “I called my husband and we brought her to the ER where she was seen by a nurse who said that throwing up was a good thing, that a good amount of water had exited her body decreasing her chances of drowning, but that we had to continue to supervise for 48 hours in case of ‘dry drowning.’

Couture said that the nurse explained that dry drowning is a term used to describe drowning from water build up in the lungs that can happen up to 48 hours after a near-drowning experience. “She has been sleeping with us since this happened and I watch her for each breath to be sure that it is not her last one.”

On a third stroke of luck, Couture said the little girl wanted to jump right back into the pool after the experience, which is sometimes not the case for children after a traumatizing experience with water or any other element. “Many people have reached out to me and I realize how incredibly lucky we have been and I want to make others aware or remind them that this can really happen to anyone at any time and that there is no such thing as being too vigilant.”

Since the incident, Couture applied new regulations around her children’s pool activities, such as serving their lunch outside of the fenced-in area surrounding the pool and increasing the number of supervising adults per child ratio. n

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