To the Editor:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our community for its support after the recent fire at Tawasentha Park, which destroyed our pool building. 

As many of you may have heard, our volunteer fire departments and first responders were on the scene at 3:30 a.m. on Father’s Day, and volunteers and town officials stayed until well into the evening to investigate and clean up after the fire.

Once the scene was secured, our parks department staff immediately went to work to restore power and services to get the park re-opened.  Within two weeks, we were able to re-open the pool to residents, using portable trailers for restrooms and changing-room facilities and re-stocking the temporary guardroom with the essential supplies.

The Albany County Department of Health was very helpful to our staff and was able to re-inspect the pool right before the July 4th holiday weekend.

I would also like to express our sincere gratitude to the many organizations that reached out to offer assistance, including our community partners at the Guilderland YMCA and Pinehaven Country Club for providing access to the facilities so that our summer Learn to Swim and camp swim programs were able to start on time, without interruption.

The University at Albany also allowed us to use some of its pool equipment until such time as the new equipment arrived.

Many residents have expressed their gratitude for the quick response by our town employees to re-open the pool in such a timely fashion.  We appreciate their kind words and are working very hard to complete the demolition and cleanup so that we can get to work designing and constructing a new pool building and permanent bathroom facility to be ready by next summer. 

Once again, I want to assure our residents that the town pool will continue to serve as a major recreational resource for both summer campers and town residents.

Kenneth D. Runion

Guilderland Town Supervisor