Peru residents may have an answer on the long-awaited municipal pool issue during next Monday’s council meeting.

Peru Mayor Ken Kolowski said he wanted to vote on phase two of the project, hiring Kmetz Architects to complete approximately $500,000 architectural drawings during Monday’s council meeting to move plans for the pool forward.

The only steps presented to the council have been conceptual drawings, which are presented before projects.

If built, the $7 million pool would feature diving boards, a water slide, 25-meter competition lanes and a capacity of 434 swimmers.

Kolowski said he would be asking for the vote on phase two to be on the Oct. 6 agenda and opened the floor to discussion under old business during the Public Services section of the Committee of the Whole on Monday.

Alderman Tom Payton asked Kolowski if anything had changed since their meeting about a week ago because he was under the impression that they had a “gentleman’s agreement” to wait until the feasibility study on the sports complex had come back.

“I basically talked to you about the memorandum,” he said. “About the size of the pool being smaller than the ice skating rink. You agreed there had been no traffic study done.”

Kolowski said he was going off expert opinions to put the pool at Washington Park and there has never been a traffic study.

In July, Corporation Counsel Scott Schweickert sent out a memorandum to the council, outlining one of the facts presented during previous meetings and combining it with his own research.

The memo states that 21% (2,078) of Peru’s population is between the ages of 0 and 18. Due to the maximum capacity, even if only children used the pool, only 20% of the city’s children would be able to use it at one time. It reiterates that the pool is smaller than the ice rink, and the proposed pool would not fit the needs of the community.

Kolowski said that there are some points in the memo that had validation, but there is a lot of aspects that he disagrees with.

“The upsetting part for me is that the memo was sent out,” he said. “That’s kind of disturbing to me. I’m the most transparent guy… but for someone in my administration to send that out —an inner office memo...I don’t think that’s a business practice that we should be doing.”

On Monday, Payton asked for the council to take a step back and really look at where they want to build the pool.

“What if we build it up north?” he said. “Where we have space, we have parking, and we can give the citizens what they want, a pool, not something that’s smaller than the ice rink.”

Pool Committee Chair Rick O’Sadnick said Kmetz wouldn’t put the pool anywhere other than Washington Park because of the water feature.

“Not all projects need to be revenue builders or business development-centered projects,” he said. “This is for the city of Peru.”

If everyone is present on Monday, Oct. 6, the council will vote on Phase Two of the project.

An advisory referendum passed in November of 2024, asking residents if the city should construct and operate a municipal swimming pool funded by the use of the hotel/motel tax.