Kyle pool controversy

August 2, 2006, 5:40 p.m.

Kyle could have kept it quiet

The Myth of Jones:
A Column

KYLE — The Case of the Burdened Breastfeeder at the Kyle Municipal Swimming Pool is about wrapped up. Good. The incident was overblown from the start.

A woman, Michelle Hickey, breastfed her baby at the pool one day in June. A pool manager, not knowing that breastfeeding is allowed wherever a mother is allowed, asked Hickey to breastfeed where it might not have been a distraction. The pool manager was wrong and subsequently learned the law. Hickey refused the request, was not approached again, and subsequently returned to the pool without incident.

Somehow, this winds up on the front page of a local newspaper.

Topping all of that, the information above is in the newspaper story.

Imagine a smoker on city property, approached by a city official and asked to move. The city official says smoking bothers people nearby. The smoker says he's allowed to smoke in that location. The city official learns the law and nothing more comes of it. That's life. People have momentary misunderstandings, straighten them out and move on. This is not a change in the status quo. It's barely a conflict. It's not news. It's a slightly titillating item, as it were, for the inside pages, if it's worth publishing at all, which is questionable.

The swimming pool incident in Kyle is not a dramatization of the dreadful oppression foisted by society upon breastfeeding mothers. It's the grist of life, a misunderstanding cleared up so far in advance of publication that the resolution of this minor mix-up is in the original story.

Of course, this turns into a three-week moral outrage, complete with message boards, follow-up stories and attorneys. And that is the city's fault.

Kyle Parks and Recreation Director Kerry Urbanowicz, who wouldn't be in his position if he weren't such a tireless public citizen well before he went to work for the city, could have chosen his words more carefully in the original newspaper story. Urbanowicz stood behind the decision by his pool manager, Crystal Modawell.

Urbanowicz characterized the episode as "a safety issue," adding, "When you see something like that, it draws people's attention from the pool. You kind of take a double take, triple take, then you sink to the bottom of the pool."

Urbanowicz went on to say in the story that Hickey might not have been able to assist her five-year-old if he had trouble swimming, and that pool regulations require any child five or younger to be within arm's reach of an adult. Hickey said in the story that none of this was mentioned to her when she discussed the matter with Urbanowicz.

There's a difference between standing behind your pool manager and standing behind your pool manager's decision. The city is correct to stand behind its pool manager. But the pool manager's decision was contrary to law, and there's no standing behind that.

The constructive response from the city would have been, "We made a mistake. We're sorry. It won't happen again." Instead, the city rationalized. And that's what made the event newsworthy, that's what compelled Hickey to ask for a public apology and that's what set the message boards on fire.

On July 17, Kyle City Manager Tom Mattis and Mayor Miguel Gonzalez issued a joint statement that stopped short of a public apology, though it says the city is not "resistant to allowing mothers to breastfeed babies at our facilities in a lawful manner." The statement also acknowledges, rightly, that city staff isn't always going to "get it right" regarding tiny day-to-day decisions, but the city will learn from its mistakes as it grows, just like all of us.

Urbanowicz is an honest man sticking up for his pool manager. He's not an evil chauvinist. And there aren't a lot of mothers, or fathers, who have put in more time and more effort for more kids than Urbanowicz. He really is concerned about safety, particularly at a high-liability operation like a public swimming pool. But in his official capacity with a growing city under increasing scrutiny, he made a mistake. He'll grow, too.

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