News has come out indicating that the echo center and pool facilities will remain closed until September, with the excuse given that they are using this downtime that originated with Covid19 to do more extensive maintenance to the facility and so decided to remain closed all summer. There was no plan to do this until the Covid19 pandemic, and they and already printed a full summer schedule. This is nonsense, and there is nothing that would take three months to accomplish that would make any more of a difference than the typical annual closure in August. We've needed a new facility for YEARS.. I can't imagine that 4 months of closure will suddenly breathe all new life into this aging facility. And for many of us patrons, the loss of using the pool facilities is VERY detrimental. Many of us who are older and recovering from traumatic injuries or surgery are limited to the low impact of the pool for exercise and rehab because we are UNABLE to use weight rooms and other types of exercise anf rehab that are harder on the joints, like running or weight training. Anyone who has had knee or hip replacement or anything similar knows how crucial pool fitness can be to maintaining our health. We as the local community were never given even the opportunity bro vote on the matter. It was decided FOR us. As of today, announcement was made that bars and restaurants are reopening, which will require the same if not MORE effort to keep restrooms and common areas clean during use by patrons...who will be attending in large numbers. At this time there is hundreds of pages of data explaining how low to nonexistent the risk of Covid19 transmission is in a heavily chlorinated pool environment. And maintenance of the locker rooms can be done regularly, just as is to be expected in the bars and restaurants that have now been allowed to reopen. Not to mention, use of the facilities is elective. But once again, the decision was more based on maintenance closing, than I was for Covid19 response..as other communities in BC have already made plans to reopen their pools.. so why should we, the local community, be forced to commute an hour to be able to swim for an hour? Please sign this and pass it along, there are many people who depend on use of this facility, whose health will suffer great setbacks with that much time out of the water for exercise. It would take me a year personally to make up for the loss of even two months not swimming due to my health conditions and having neuromuscular disease. No proper consideration was given to the needs of the community in this matter. Please sign and support us!