As a longtime user of the Steam Room at Brennan Park, I am flabbergasted at the time it’s taken to fix the problem. The shutdown of our only such (hot therapy) public facility for more than six months is a bit like the old apartment buildings in Vancouver, where the elevators are broken for months and the users are stranded without access. But those buildings are in private hands, whereas our pool is owned by us and our local government.
It is downright embarrassing. Since our community only has a steam room (and no dry-heat sauna), this facility is crucial to the health and welfare of hundreds of people, not least of which are all of those young people travelling through our town. Saunas and steam rooms have long been understood as beneficial to human health.
Most community pools have both a steam room and a sauna! The cost of a typical dry-heat electric sauna unit is much less than the apparatus to make steam. One doesn’t have “supply-chain” excuses. If we had a dry-heat sauna, we could have had that changed in a week, not six months.
The tiles in the Steam Room were recently replaced and are fine. Is this a story of over-reaching bureaucracy and/or of general incompetence?
John Harvey
Squamish
Editor’s note: This letter was sent to mayor and council and copied to The Squamish Chief. District of Squamish staff say the Steam Room is still set to reopen in late June.
.png;w=120;h=116;mode=crop)
