Dickinson Park Pool Opens Saturday

By Steve Bigham

The Dickinson Park pool will open this Saturday at 10 am, officially kicking off the summer season in Newtown. The will be open every day until Labor Day.

The massive Dickinson pool was built in 1956, one year after the park first opened. It was a pond prior to that and served as a popular site for Newtown swimmers. Former Parks & Rec Building and Grounds Supervisor Ron Moffat, who died back in March, took pride in keeping the pool in good condition.

 “People forget that this is really just a pond with cement poured over the top of it,” Mr Moffat was quoted as saying a couple years back.

Speaking of Mr Moffat, the staff at Parks and Recreation will hold a ceremony in his memory Sunday, June 30, at Liberty Field on Elm Drive. There, a bench with an engraving has been installed in his honor. The ceremony begins at 2 pm.

In other Parks and Recreation news, the Dickinson Park bathroom facility is finally open, more than three years after construction first began. Last summer, the highway department was called on to bail the town out after it was unable to find a contractor willing to put it up.

Some people question the wisdom behind the bathroom’s location between the tennis courts and the pavilion, making it a focal point from the Elm Drive entrance to the park. The walk to the new bathrooms from the pool will be a long one.

The Parks and Recreation summer camps begin Monday, July 1, at Dickinson and Treadwell. Fiona Fraser is the site leader at Treadwell. Kim Minnock is the leader at Dickinson.

Ryan Eberts is the head lifeguard at Dickinson, while Nick Taylor is in charge of the pool at Treadwell, which opened in May.

Pool passes can be purchased at the Parks & Rec office at Town Hall South. A summer-long family pass is $100. An individual pass sells for $65. The daily fee for use of the town’s pools is $5.