Commission Recommends Cutting Tanners Lake Beach Lifeguards, Putting Money into Other Programs

Money the city spends on lifeguards at Beach could be better used elsewhere, Oakdale Park and Recreation Commission members agreed at their Tuesday meeting.

The commission voted, at the Feb. 15 meeting, to recommend that the city council cut funding for lifeguards at Tanners Lake Beach and put up “swim at your own risk” signs and an emergency phone.

“I don’t think anybody in the city would notice if there are lifeguards there or not,” said commission member Ted Bearth. “I would think that we’ve got a lot better use for $23,000 than that.”

If the city council approves cutting the lifeguard service, Parks and Recreation Director Bruce Anderson said he’d like to use some of the savings to restore the city’s summer concert series. Last year, the city sponsored eight concerts at , he said, but this year, the budget has been cut down to two concerts.

Anderson said adding more concerts is one of the first things he’d do with additional money.

Attendance at family events like the concerts and the Family Fun ‘Flatables festival, held in September, are high, while over the years, beach attendance has dropped, he said. The beach’s average attendance is between 25 and 75 people per day, he said. At Woodbury’s Carver Lake Beach, attendance increased after lifeguards were cut two years ago, Anderson said.

At a cost of up to $24,000 per year, paying for lifeguards and concessions staff at the beach eats up about 18 percent of the Parks and Recreation department’s approximately $150,000 programming budget, Anderson said.

Anderson said he brought the issue before the commission with some “trepidation.” Neighboring North St. Paul proposed closing Silver Lake Beach last year, but Maplewood took over management of the beach following a public outcry.

Cutting the beach’s staff would likely necessitate locking up the beach house building, which was just re-roofed last year, said Parks Superintendent Randy Bastyr.

An unmonitored bathroom building could be a magnet for vandalism and a safety concern—a place that people could be dragged into or accosted, he said.