By James Windell
The South Haven City Council approved the purchase of lifeguard towers at its February 16, 2026, regular meeting.
Although the request to approve the purchase of lifeguard towers and stands were among a number of consent items on the City Council agenda, Councilman Tom Capps asked that the issue of funds for lifeguard towers and stands be dealt with as separate items in New Business.
In introducing the topic of lifeguard towers, City Manager Kate Hosier said time is of the essence to get the supplies in place to restart the lifeguard program. “We are trying to get these in place by Memorial Day, which is our goal,” she said.
However, council member Tom Capps raised questions about the cost of purchasing two lifeguard towers for $65,000 and two lifeguard stands at $20,000, wondering if there are other options.
“For all due diligence, I don’t want to stop the program at all,” Capps said. “I would like us to maybe look at buying one tower, give it a week or so to maybe find out if there’s somebody local, which I know a couple people that do stuff like this. And maybe we could save us some money instead of spending $85,000 on projects, maybe we can have these towers in more in the $50,000 range. So that’s the reason why I’d like to have a stock about this.”
Police Chief Adam DeBoer said that the lifeguards will need at least two towers to cover all of South Beach, adding the structures will also provide them with shelter in inclement weather. “To have just one tower would be impossible,” DeBoer, who is on the committee to restarting the lifeguard program, said. “It would put our lifeguards at risk during an issue.”
Responding to questions about how the lifeguard program could proceed if they had no towers or only one when the lifeguard program begins this summer, DeBoer said: “We will make it work.” He then added that it would not be the best way to start out, but “Myself and the people on the committee for this want it to be the best. We don’t want to put something out there that is, for lack of a better word, half-baked.”
Council member Dave Flack said the priority should be on serving the community. “We want this to be right and we want it to work the right way and so we need the right equipment for that,” Flack said.
Hosier said the equipment is just one expense that will come with having a lifeguard program, adding some revenue source will be needed to support it. “I can tell you very definitively the parking fees do have to go up,” Hosier said. “What should be on the table is that this is the last year for a three-year annual pass. We need to have a good conversation about do we still need to give out that pass because that’s money out the door. There’re some hard decisions that this council is going to have to make, but I can tell you right now we are looking at the parking fees going up – all parking fines will have to go up. All the fines and fees that are captured on the beach will go into the Beach Enterprise Fund. That’s where the revenues for those beaches come from. They also pay for the beach patrol. They also pay for capital improvements. And we do know that we have some aged structures out there. We also know we have undersized structures.”
Although Capps suggested having the structures built locally, the Council approved the purchase of two lifeguard watch towers in the amount of $65,200.00 utilizing approved funding for the lifeguard program and authorized staff to execute the necessary documents. The Council also approved the purchase of two Bausch Rescue-T Lifeguard Stands from Bausch Enterprises, Inc. for $20,930, utilizing approved funding allocated for the Lifeguard Program.
