I've never met the guy but damn he sends out a lot of mail.
I don't think he works ... he's what Rush Limbaugh calls a "community agitator."
Nevertheless Mr. Pool keeps inviting me to "make a splash at the City Council meeting" ... which is the most benign statement ever.
Nobody makes splashes at Tybee Island City Council meetings anymore!
They're very controlled, scripted and civil ... as benign as Congress.
A decade or so ago, Tybee Island City Council meetings were surfing the never ending big waves!
My favorites were ... Counilman Walter Crawford getting so upset during a meeting that he threw his drink in the Styrofoam cup he'd brought from Spankey's across the street on a fellow council member before throwing a mountain of papers in the air and walking out ... NOW THAT's GOVERNMENT IN ACTION!
Councilman Jack Youmans, who served longer than FDR, addressing the issue of "alleged Prostitution" on Tybee Island, explaining, "There's no Prostitutes on Tybee. You can get it for free!"
Mayor Pat Locklear apologizing for forgetting to tell anybody he'd given permission to the U.S. Army to conduct training maneuvers on the island ... so while people are tanning on the beach ... paratroopers are jumping out of helicopters hovering above the ocean and solders with flame throwers attacked Mallory Pearce's house ... "Yeah, I forgot," the Mayor explained.
NOW THOSE WERE CITY COUNIL MEETINGS!
Mr. Pool wants to make a splash when he couldn't raise a ripple.
Besides the City Council dealt with the Pool issue 15 or so years ago when it had it's first opportunity to not raise taxes by stuffing a "Special Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) down our throats, dealt with the issue.
Should Tybee Island have a Pool for the kids (lets be honest ... Tybee doesn't do anything for kids ... the goal was to have aquatic exercise for the elderly) ... or a Gymnasium so it could be named after aforementioned Councilman Youmans who wanted a place to get it all for free.
Fast forward to now and we have a Gym ... The Youmans-Solomon Gymnasium ... built backwards so that as you drive down the main drag you'd never know it's a Gym ... I've come to believe it's Jack's Yomans legacy in monument to forever "moon the island."
I've been.
It's a nice Gym if you can find the front door.
Now the elderly who are still alive and wanted a pool back then instead of Gym so they can do aquatic exercises ... WANT THEIR DAMN POOL!
City Council has put it out as a referendum to the voters ... because they don't have the balls to make a decision by themselves about tax dollars.
What they're saying through such a political maneuver is ... "We're not paying for it! If you want it ... you pay for it! ... we're using all of our money to hire more policemen, buy Stop Signs and have some dude from the Water Department check out your meter then spending an hour in his truck writing a report on his laptop."
I have no doubt Mr. Pool and his cohorts will co-opt City Council to not make a decision by justifying it's the people's choice.
I just hope that when the Tybee pool is built ... it's facing upwards and can hold water ... isn't built backwards like the Gymnasium ... and isn't political asses mooning us again.
