REMARKS
Shekar Krishnan discusses the lack of swimming instruction and access to pool facilities
0:22:02
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109 sec
Shekar Krishnan discusses the lack of swimming instruction and access to pool facilities in New York City due to budgetary issues and the existing lifeguard crisis.
- Highlights the pressing need for free swim instruction for New York City children.
- Criticizes the city's budget cuts impacting programs that could provide access to swimming pools.
- Advocates for collaborations between government agencies and non-profit organizations to increase pool access and swim instruction.
- Calls for interagency collaborations to improve access to both Parks Department and Department of Education (DOE) pools.
- Expresses concern that current limitations are a missed opportunity to ensure all New Yorkers are safe in the water.
Shekar Krishnan
0:22:02
And the reason why I mentioned this is because it seems to me that parks department will be able to do a certain number of things to help provide free swim instruction.
0:22:13
But for number of reasons.
0:22:15
We're not actually reaching the number of children who need to learn how to swim.
0:22:20
Families that need access to pools, whether the lifeguard crisis, whether it's budgetary issues.
0:22:26
And on that point, I do wanna say if this is the stated goal of the mayors to improve some access to invest in parks and green space.
0:22:33
It is unacceptable to be cutting from all of these programs.
0:22:37
And to say that things like extending pool beach hour yours simply can't happen because there's no funding for it.
0:22:42
It's a matter of choices, and I think here it's an investment that would benefit all New Yorkers.
0:22:46
But if that is a stated reason where these programs can't be ended where legislation runs into concerns.
0:22:53
Whether or not I disagree with them, I do disagree with that.
0:22:56
I do think that there is a huge opportunity to bring a lot of swim providers and organizations to partner.
0:23:01
And together, the number of people who can be served, the number of New Yorkers grows dramatically because these organizations are also running great swim programs too in their own facilities.
0:23:11
And so it seems to me the collaboration between government agency and the nonprofit side could really expand the amount of New Yorkers served and who have access to pools.
0:23:21
So would love to hear more.
0:23:22
I'm gonna need the conversation about what might be possible in terms of access to both parks department pools, DOE pools too.
0:23:31
And that is an interagency collaboration that we can all be working on together.
0:23:35
To find ways to essentially open up more pools and open up more access for more organizations, more classes.
0:23:42
That's the only way until we build those public pools in the future.
0:23:45
That we can make sure all New Yorkers are at least safe in the water or know how to swim, and it seems like we're leaving a lot of those resources on the table.