FARMINGTON -- City leaders will preserve at least one key element of summer fun for this community. Faced with an onslaught of illegal swimming at the Farmington Pond, city leaders voted last week to remove any restrictions to swimming at the pond and to allow people to swim at their own risk.
One of those risks includes kids swinging from a rope tied to a tree near the pond into the water on the north side.
Swimming at the pond in Farmington Canyon is currently illegal and police are continually called to enforce no- swimming limits and to remove ropes tied to a tree beside the pond.
"This is Farmington. Something as big as the pond and the tree, I'd hate to lose it," Councilman Rick Dutson said. "This is where memories are made."
Parks and Recreation Director Neil Miller had asked city leaders to consider changing policy at the pond because residents have so regularly disobeyed the no-swimming rule.
Miller said city staff has also spent "many hours cutting down rope swings" from the tree.
Mayor Scott Harbertson lives near the pond and said it is not uncommon for police to make three or four stops a day during the summer to chase away swimmers.
City officials met with Carl Parker, from the Utah Risk Management Mutual Association, who suggested the city could remove the restrictions and let people swim at their own risk but continue to cut down rope swings as a way to reduce potential liability.
Council members discussed the merit of cutting down limbs on the tree to remove the swings, but the more they talked about the restriction, the less they liked it.
Councilman Jim Talbot is convinced that establishing a swim-at-your-own-risk situation will not completely reduce the city's potential liability.
"Even with the signs down, if someone drowns, you're going to have a lawsuit," Talbot said.
City Manager Max Forbush suggested the amount of time policing swimming has been a distraction.
"The police have better things to do with their time than monitoring swimming at the pond."
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