You may remember the Valley Club, the suburban Philadelphia swim club that gained infamy earlier this summer when it booted out several black and Latino day campers for, as the club's president put it, changing its atmosphere. Well, on Friday the club decided to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
THE SUBJECT LINE on the e-mail simply reads, "The End."
As in, the end of the Valley Club, the small, sleepy Huntingdon Valley community pool that was thrust into the national spotlight this past summer, allegedly for discriminating against minority campers who'd signed up to swim there for 90 minutes each week.
Yesterday, Valley president John Duesler announced that the club's board of directors had voted 5-1 to file this week for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
This comes on the heels of a ruling by the state Human Relations Commission two months ago that racial discrimination had occurred, as well as an anticipated avalanche of civil suits. I had a hunch that this wouldn't make it to court--there was absolutely no way the Valley Club could possibly win. I'm just sad they didn't have the guts to issue a formal apology.
Club president John Duesler said in the email that the club had been in a financial hole for some time.
"While many will point towards our legal situation and negative media exposure this summer as the reason" for the bankruptcy filing, "the truth is that the club has struggled to stay out of the red for at least the last decade," he wrote.
"Despite our most ambitious efforts and countless hours of dedication towards the club, we have been unable to grow our membership enough to sustain The Valley Club any longer. Indeed, we have not been profitable, for as long as I've been with the club. And our current debt from this year's operation and legal fees now exceeds $100,000."
Seen in that light, Duesler's claim that the kids from Creative Steps would have changed the Valley Club's atmosphere look even more mind-blowingly stupid. If this is accurate, Duesler had to have known he had to tread extremely likely to keep the club afloat--and then he makes remarks like that?
One member who declined to be identified said most of his fellow club members didn't know about the Creative Steps flap until well after the fact.
Ronnie Polaneczky, who wrote this story for the Philadelphia Daily News, posted the full letter at her blog. According to the letter, Duesler turned to 384 of the club's bondholders for help--but only got 41 responses, most of whom wanted to just give up and file for bankruptcy. Unfortunately, there's nothing in that letter even resembling an apology.