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Obama Holds Off on Pool-Destroying Regulations til After Election
Topic Started: May 30 2012, 02:21 AM (201 Views)
LTC8K6
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, in an amazing example of evolution, President Obama announced he wouldn’t enforce regulations written by his own Administration.

I’m sure we’ve all heard about the ADA swimming pool lift requirement by now. In order to make swimming pools and spas accessible to Americans with Disabilities, all facilities were required to install permanent lifts in every public facility, at a cost of at least $6,000 each, by the end of May. Locations with multiple pools would be required to install a lift for every single pool on their property. Of course, each lift would need to have a qualified operator and lifeguard on duty.

Beyond the cost and hassle of getting the lifts installed, hotel insurance companies weren’t even sure if they would be able to write internal policies for them. Needless to say, the risk of lowering a quadriplegic into water over his head presents a liability problem or two. The cost could be so great that most facilities would just eliminate their pools. It’s why diving boards disappeared (I still haven’t forgiven personal injury attorneys for that one). I can only wonder what would happen to water parks, since most modern high-speed slides seem a tad hazardous for people with limited mobility.

Summer is second only to Christmas on the kid calendar. It means long days of hanging out in the pool and family road trips during which the majesty of the Grand Canyon is dwarfed by the anticipation of getting to the hotel in time for a swim before dinner. Shrewd recession-struck parents avoid the high cost of gas and complaints about a boring canyon and just take their kids directly to the closest Holidome®. Not every family is as fortunate as the First Family to be able to afford the Spanish Mediterranean, Martha's Vineyard, or a Hawaiian villa.

Needless to say, most facilities will just close their pools. And I’m quite certain that all the disappointed tourists will be told their vacation was ruined by President Obama.

Which is why the regulations had to go. But they were not eliminated -- only suspended. Facilities will now be given until January to comply. It’s the same time when Obamacare goes into effect, the Bush Tax Cuts expire, and Vladimir Putin gets to see the President's “flexibility” in its full glory. Once the election is over, the Hope mask gets tossed.

...


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/05/26/Election-Pool
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cks
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My local Y has long had such a lift in one of its pools. I have seen it used just once - by a handicapped woman who was too large to comfortably sit in the seat and the safety strap could barely fit around her. Most of the time, the lifeguard has to watch the seat to make sure that ill behaved urchins are trying to sit in it or use it. THis instead of guarding those who are swimming in the pool.

For a number of years I served on the board of our private club - retired from my position this past fall. WHen I went this past weekend for the traditional opening (and to mark my place at the lap pool) I talked to a current board member about the regulation. He said that the club would have to close if that was enforced since we have two pools (outdoors) and we have neither the money to purchase, install, remove for the winter, store, and reinstall each summer. There is some question as to whether private clubs such as ours would have to comply (we have no handicapped members at present) but that at present no one seemed sure (our board consists almost exclusively of teachers, lawyers, and insurance people - which is why we still have a high diving board, I am convinced).
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kbp

A couple decades ago I had to review loads of records to determine the meanings for various public access regulations encountered in building streets and highways. Naturally the regulations themselves were lacking some information necessary to determine which criteria had precedence over other criteria. For instance, imagine trying to build sidewalks for wheelchairs on the hills in San Francisco; was the percentage of rise more important than the cross slope or what….

Once I had it all figured out, it allowed us to build. The priorities were established in the Federal Register notes …pages and pages of them. The committees that put them together actually had handicapped participants to help, so they had let it be known what was most important to them.

Then they revised the regulations! The masterminds came in with about a hundred ‘what if’ situations that seemed to have a blind paralyzed person crossing streets every place imaginable ….and they allowed for rest areas that made it possible for a blind and paralyzed person to pass another.

Anyway, the ‘what ifs’ seem to be moving towards forcing us to accommodate every person in every possible situation, which is impossible, but we’ll spend a fortune trying. It’s sad because it seemed like the handicapped just wanted it a little less restrictive when we were building new, not reconstructing and retrofitting the entire nation.

It's not something I condemn, as many need a little more help than others, but I'm not able to figure out how to justify all the costs involved ...where to mark the line of going too far.

As for pools, it might be cheaper to transport those who need the lifts to pools which have them.
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