One of the main issues, in one of the most watched primaries in the Capital Region, has to do with the pools.

Renovations on the South Troy Pool are taking longer than expected and officials say it will not be ready by July 1. The target date was initially set by Troy Mayor Patrick Madden in February.

Days before Tuesday’s Democratic Mayoral Primary, and less than two weeks before what many expected to be the reopening of the South Troy Pool, Madden’s office says more time is needed to complete the project.

“You closed the pools. It is kind of like an arsonist who wants to get credit for putting out the fire he started,” said Rodney Wiltshire, a Democrat challenging Madden in Tuesday’s primary.

Wiltshire says Madden made pools a campaign topic when he announced the multi-million dollar plan in February, which included replacing the Knickerbacker Pool.

“It is a super important issue to the voters,” Wiltshire said.

In a lengthy statement emailed to Spectrum News Friday, a spokesperson for Madden said “additional time is needed” due to a number of factors — including heavy rain this past spring and unexpected repairs to portions of the pool’s concrete walls.

“To say we were going to be opening on July 1, when I first heard it I kind of scoffed a little bit,” said Tom Reale, the Republican candidate for Troy Mayor.

Reale says it represents the Madden administration’s failure to address problems.

“It is one of the biggest weekends of the summer [and] they are going to be without their pool for a third year in a row,” Reale said.

Madden’s office also appears to reject the notion July 1 was ever set as a formal date to reopen. The statement said, in part, “The city has been consistent from the beginning, the project had an aggressive schedule, and custom manufacture of necessary items would determine the completion date.”

“To retrace and retract, even use doublespeak and talk about it [as] a moving target, that is just his way of trying to get out of it,” Wiltshire said.

Madden's spokesperson stressed the South Troy Pool would still reopen this summer, though it remains unclear when exactly that would happen.