Ottawa City Council takes third, final step toward financing $5.1 million pool

Mayor says pool could open by May 2023

Kids and families swim at Riordan Pool in Ottawa to cool off

Bernardi Securities will now help the city of Ottawa obtain the $5.1 million to build a new Riordan Pool after the city completed its third and final step in the bond ordinance process.

John Vezzetti of Bernardi Securities said he will work with the city’s administration to secure the funds when the time is right.

“We’ll be meeting in the next few weeks and deciding when that is, taking advantage of what is still historically low interest rates, maybe not in the last six months but in the last 40-50 years,” Vezzetti said. “It’s still a good time to borrow funds.”

Mayor Dan Aussem said the new pool could have an opening day of May 15, 2023.

Commissioner James Less, who has been the lone vote against the pool, raised a concern with the city relying on marijuana tax money in order to pay off the $5.1 million. Using his own math, as long as the money the city receives from marijuana sales tax remains constant, it will take 15 years to pay off the bond.

Vezzetti said the bond will be paid back over the course of 20 years while answering Less’s question.

“There is a redemption provision in the bond issue that allows the city to pay those off early if the revenues were to exceed what we’re expecting them to be 20 years from now, in addition to the cannabis tax that is being pledged toward the repayment of the bond issue,” Vezzetti said. “There are also income tax revenues being attached alongside.”

Vezzetti said the city does have a certain coverage component that will have to be met year-in-and-year-out with the intent of using the cannabis revenue first and income tax second.

Commissioner Wayne Eichelkraut said the city also has the video gaming tax that can be used in case cannabis sales go down.

Less mentioned the city could see less from marijuana sales because of Peru being the future home of one of the newly-licensed cannabis dispensaries.

“We already know there’s going to be a cannabis place in Peru and you got to take that into consideration, which we have,” Eichelkraut said. “As far as looking at how much we’re taking in, it’s going to be less. We know that. But with the gaming tax, it doesn’t seem to drop. It only gets bigger every year.”