It's too late to include a referendum vote on the future of the city's covered swimming pool along with the September primary election, Layton City Council members have learned.
The city will look at holding the referendum in November, along with the general election, or maybe having a special election in the spring of 1991, before the city's budget for the next fiscal year is set.Council members are concerned that the Surf-N-Swim pool, with its open-air summer operation and covered in the winter months, is losing money. The city has had to subsidize the pool's operation by $100,000 to $116,000 annually in its first three years of operation.
Shutting the pool down in the winter would save operating and heating costs, but senior citizens, the primary users during the winter, oppose the shutdown.
The council decided that a citywide referendum might be the answer.
It can't be held in conjunction with the Sept. 11 primary election, according to City Recorder Steve Ashby, because the ballots for that election have already been printed and are ready for distribution.
It could be held in November, during the general election, but the council doesn't want its proposal to subsidize the pool's deficit with a one percent increase in the city franchise tax on utilities to appear on the same ballot as the initiative to remove sales tax on food.
Voters may be in a tax-cutting mood when they go into the polling booth and chop both proposals, the council fears.
And, the council members facing re-election in November of 1991 may not want the referendum on the ballot then because it could overshadow other election issues.
But holding a special election is expensive, Ashby said, costing up to $6,000 for ballots and judges, depending on how many polling stations are set up.
Setting up a single polling spot in city hall may not be enough, Ashby said, because state law requires an "adequate" number of polling places in elections, a description that Ashby said is open to interpretation.
There are also problems with putting a city question on primary or general election ballots, he told the council. Voting districts don't follow city boundaries, he said, so election judges would have to determine a person's residency before issuing the proper ballot.
The council agreed to discuss the problem in a Sept. 6 work session with the city's parks and recreation commission.