Residents in Scarborough are disappointed the YMCA couldn’t find a way to raise the money, mostly since no YMCA means no pool for the town.

For 13-year-old Tressa Brown, this means her swim team will still travel to practice.

“It would have been nice to have the pool,” said Brown, an eighth-grader at Scarborough Middle School and member of the swim team. “The team has to go all the way to Portland.”

Scarborough resident Beth Backhaus was also looking forward to the pool, both for her family and the town’s swim teams.

“We have a lot of friends who have kids on the swim team who have to travel. It would have been nice to have them stay right here,” said Backhaus. “I’m really disappointed, it would have been nice to have a pool.”

Kim Fowler, another Scarborough resident, also wishes the pool had been built. She already can go to the gym in town, said Fowler, and a pool would have made Scarborough even better.

“Having a public swimming pool would have been nice to have in Scarborough,” said Fowler.

For sociologist and Scarborough resident Christy Hammer, the town lost much more than a pool.

“It was going to be a hub of the community,” said Hammer. “Especially in a time when people are more isolated.” In Hammer’s view, there really is no place in Scarborough where people can meet and spend time with each other. “There aren’t a lot of sidewalks, not a lot of front porches these days. People are really alienated,” she added.

Town Councilor Carol Rancourt, who is involved with the Senior Services Study Committee, was also disappointed that Scarborough still lacks a center of community, especially for seniors.

“A lot of the reasons people didn’t vote for the senior center was because they thought the Y encompassed all of that,” said Rancourt. “I think we’re back to the drawing board since obviously people aren’t going to like having nothing again.”

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