Mayor says, ‘I want to get the high school in the water’

Clarification: Susanville Mayor Mendy Scuhuster responded with a comment on this story. Schuster said during the May 7 Susanville City Council meeting, she said she wanted to rent the pool for the high school swim team. “I wanted to see if the city could rent the pool for the high school swimmers,” Schuster commented.

Susanville Mayor Mendy Schuster leapt off the high dive at the Susanville City Council’s May 7 meeting and said, “I want to get the high school in the water.”

Ironically, while the Susanville City Council has two members on the Honey Lake Valley Recreation Authority Board (Curtis Bortle and Russ Brown) along with two members from the Lassen County Board of Supervisors (Tom Neely and Mike Scanlan) and a public member (Antone Jonas) — that board is its own independent agency created through a joint powers agreement between the city and the county. Schuster’s desire may be far beyond her grasp as mayor. The city also provides administrative services to the HLVRA, but it has absolutely no control over that independent board’s decisions.

While the city may consider providing additional funding to finance a fall shoulder season at the pool, the ultimate decision about the pool’s schedule remains completely with the HLVRA.

Here’s what happened
The waters of community controversy over the Honey Lake Valley Recreation Authority’s recent decision to eliminate the fall shoulder season at the Honey Lake Valley Community Pool and terminate its three-year contract with Lassen High School — leaving the Grizzlies’ swim team high and dry without a place to practice or compete, splashed into the Susanville City Council’s May 7 meeting.

The item was not on the agenda, but local resident and swim team parent Shelby Burton — who’s on a mission to save the swim team’s season, offer solutions to resolve the pool’s financial issues and restructure the pool’s governing body in ways to allow its continued existence — appeared at the podium to address the council.

Burton asked the council to put the matter on the agenda for its next meeting “for open discussion and review and consider steps for overturning this decision. I’m also urging you to support long-term structural reform to prevent these types of harmful closures from happening again.”

She said the decision to close the pool impacts lives.

“It means our high school swim team cannot practice or compete, the community loses access to vital low-impact exercise and children lose out on swim lessons,” Burton said. “This closure is not due to lack of funding. The school has funds allocated for pool use. Or a lack of interest. It is a consequence of administrative mismanagement, inflated salaries and a lack of community focus … during the March 18 pool board meeting, Ms. Rice (the pool manager) confirmed that the only cost associated with keeping the pool open during the shoulder season was her own salary.

“This means the board is knowingly prioritizing a single, inflated, administrative salary over valuable community programs and the swim team.”

Shelby said two years ago she and other community members “stood before” the HLVRA board and offered suggestions to increase revenues and reduce costs, “but every proposal was denied by the manager without objection from the board … The community deserves answers, reform and a sustainable plan for the future.”

She also complained the HLVRA did not advise the high school of its decision to eliminate the fall shoulder season and the swim team

“This shows a … failure to act as a responsible and engaged community partner,” Burton said. “What is most concerning is the emotional and developmental fallout of the pool not acting in good faith. This is an issue as it damages students’ morale, breaks trust and sends a harmful message to students that their programs are disposable for inflated salaries and poor management.

“If our pool cannot even extend the courtesy of communication for our local high school, how can we expect responsible community focused leadership moving forward?”

Later in the meeting, Councilmember Patrick Parrish asked that the pool issue appear on the council’s agenda.

“Looks like the pool is a topic, a hot topic right now,” Parrish said. “Can we discuss the pool?”

Mayor Mendy Schuster said she also intended to ask for that, as well.

“The shoulder season, correct me if I’m wrong, is from like mid-August to mid-November if the high school swim team does well,” Schuster said. “I would like an item to discuss it because these are members of our community — this high school team — and they’re the only high school (swim) team in our district. I just want to find out if there’s anything we can do to help. I mean, do we need to rinse the pool to get them in the water?”

“I think what the city can do to help is provide funding to the HLVRA,” said City Manager Dan Newton. “That item should come back for the council’s consideration, but the pool board decided to shorten the season. And so the city council has no jurisdiction over the pool board other than to appoint the two members of the city council who represent the city on the pool board … the city council doesn’t have authority over the pool board. The thing the city can do is provide funding.”

“I want to know how much the shoulder season costs,” Schuster said. “I want to get the high school in the water.”

“It’s not in the purview of the city council to decide what the schedule is for the pool,” Newton advised.

He said if the council wanted to provide more funding, it could certainly do that, but the pool scheduling decisions remain with the HLVRA board.