By Karen Kennedy
At the Aug. 5 city council meeting, an update was given as to the status of repairs to the Veteran’s Memorial reflecting pool at the City Center. The pool was commissioned 10 years ago by the Carmel Redevelopment Commission at a cost of $1.9 million. In recent years, it has been crumbling at the edges and continues to deteriorate.
Per Mayor Jim Brainard, the pool has recently been drained and repainted by the street department, but the replacement of the crumbling concrete is a longer process.
According to Les Olds, the CRC director at the time the pool repairs were started, there is a plan to replace the pool’s current coping with granite, which will cost $250,000. He reported that if the granite arrives by October, it is anticipated that the pool will be repaired by the end of next year.
According to Council member Eric Seidensticker, the concrete coping of the pool was improperly installed by the original contractor, Eden Enterprises, and he has stated that the company did not have field experience in those types of installations. Eden Enterprises has since filed for bankruptcy and gone out of business; the city has no remedy to recoup any of the original expenses.
