City Council Change Pool Hours In Hopes Of Retaining Lifeguards

By Gordon HopkinsThe Fairbury City Council voted to change the hours of the municipal swimming pool at a meeting Tuesday evening, June 30, 2025. The primary reason given for the change is retention of lifeguards and avoiding worker “burnout.” The city has been struggling to hire and maintain pool staff.The new hours of operation are: Monday through Saturday, 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. (Formerly Sunday through Thursday, 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.) Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. (Formerly Friday and Saturday, 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.) Pool parties, any day of the week, will be 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. (Formerly 9 to 11 p.m.)While the city council voted unanimously to change the hours, one council member made clear he didn’t agree with the change. Councilperson Bradley Kuzelka said, “I think we’re conceding a lot by cutting these hours. a lot. A lot more than I wanted.”The council also discussed appropriate times to close the pool, which led to some occasional heated moments, such as when Superintendent Anthony Biehl told Kuzelka, “Don’t stare at me,” and Kuzelka snapped back, “I can stare at whoever I want.”Currently, the swimming pool may close early on days with low attendance. Kuzelka recommended an additional sentence to pool policies, “The waterpark will not close due to low patronage.”“When I was a kid and I had a job, the hour said this to this time. I worked from four till 10. It didn’t matter if nobody came in the store. I worked from four until 10,” said Kuzelka, offering a hypothetical to explain his reasoning. “Say, you bought a membership to a gym that’s open these hours, and you showed up during those hours to use the gym and it was closed because you weren’t there. And I can’t disagree that that’s not the way it should work.”“It’s not that I don’t want to work. Like, if I didn’t want to work, I would not be at the pool at 11 o’clock at night making sure our chemicals were good. It’s not that I don’t want to be there,” said pool manager Lily Davis. “It’s my guards that are telling me, ‘Hey, I’m not coming back unless this changes.’ So, having my guards sit there and watch an empty pool for an hour and a half is only going to make them not want to come back.”“I have to field the people that are mad when they call and say, ‘Hey, I brought my kids. Why isn’t this thing open?’” said Kuzelka. “Maybe you guys don’t get the call, but I get the call.”In the end, the council voted four to two to keep the polcy as is and to allow low attendance as a reason to close the pool early.

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