$20.6 million that remains in an aquatics fund?!?!?

Where should I begin? There is a doozie of an article today in the Republic about swimming pools. Here are a couple of highlights that I notice off the top:

• We have a West Side mayoral candidate, ahem, Claudia Walters, pandering to voters of the East Side
  
• In a city of crumbling roads and overextended fire and police service, we are fighting about swimming pools
  
• The City has banked over $20.6 million in unused cash an "aquatics fund"

I am all for amenities and quality of life and all of that, but the last point struck me the most. Aren't we all supposed to be tightening our belts? Shouldn't we apply the "use it or lose it" principal to this money? Its sure going to be hard for people to drive to a pool if the roads are so bad that their car can't get there. Say what you want about the "will of the voters" but I doubt that the voters wanted that money to sit in an account and do nothing.

Sometimes, I just don't understand this council and how they get themselves into these kinds of messes.