Apr. 19--Grosse Pointe Shores residents may have to start paying for tennis and swimming lessons at the city park, and they could learn more about water service, including the possibility of building a water tower, during meetings Tuesday.

User fees for tennis or swimming lessons are being proposed to address operating costs, City Manager Brian Vick said. It's "purely instructor costs" for the lessons, he said.

The lesson fees proposed for both sports are $30 per person, per two-week session, beginning this year. Vick said the fees would be in line with those of the other Grosse Pointe communities.

User fees and water rates are two relatively small cost-saving measures city leaders would like to address as they look toward the 2009-10 budget, which starts July 1, because tax revenues are continuing to decrease in the toniest of the Pointes, as they have in most municipalities in the state.

In a Tuesday work session, the City Council and residents will get an update on the water rates issue, a topic that's been discussed for about a year. Vick said the city has several options: Staying with the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department and its annual rate increases; renegotiating a 30-year contract with Detroit; tapping into the Grosse Pointe Farms water system, or dealing with Grosse Pointe Woods.

Grosse Pointe Woods decided to stay with Detroit instead of joining the Grosse Pointe Farms system and is expecting to receive a rate discount. It plans to build a 500,000-gallon water storage tank at the city's public works site at a cost of about $2 million, City Administrator Mark Wollenweber said.

He said the city would have had to have spent about $16 million for a bigger tank, transmission lines and other improvements if it had tapped into the Grosse Pointe Farms system.

Vick said a possible water tower for Grosse Pointe Shores could hold from 300,000 to 500,000 gallons and would be placed at the public works yard behind City Hall. The cost of the water tower options range from $2 million to $6 million, he said. But eventually that could be offset because the tower would allow the city to store water during nonpeak times when rates are cheaper, and use it later.

Contact CHRISTINA HALL: 586-826-7265 or chall@freepress.com

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