Parks Panel Advises Replacement Of Pools Four Existing Pools Too Costly To Maintain

Members of the county Parks Advisory Committee decided this week it would be wiser to replace the county’s four swimming pools than to refurbish them.

The existing pools should be kept open if possible while new ones are built, panel members said.

There are several obstacles to this plan.

First, one way of saving money for replacement of the pools would be to “mothball” one pool at a time. But which pool? The parks committee members winced at the idea of having to single one out.

All four, Valley Mission, Terrace View, Park Road and, to the north, Holmberg, are heavily used.

All four pools need nearly constant patching. Wyn Birkenthal, county parks and recreation manager, said he’s even used scuba divers to patch the pools.

“We get chunks of cement that come out, not all the way so the earth is exposed,” Birkenthal said. “Like a big swiss cheese,” he added.

Also, it’s unclear how much money would be available this year - or in coming years - to work on the four pools.

Commissioners have proposed spending $960,000 on the pools next year.

The fastest possible replacement schedule would be one pool per year. Meanwhile, it’s unknown how much money would be needed to keep at least two of the other pools running.

If the county closed one, replaced one and kept the other two running, would they last until they could be replaced?

“I wish I knew,” Birkenthal said.

Committee members also discussed relocating the Valley Mission pool because its current site is over an old landfill and is unstable. The panel’s chairman, Dr. Bill Lindquist, suggested putting a new pool on the west side of the park, currently the site of a ball field.

Without specifying how to choose which pool to replace first, committee members voted to recommend that the county replace the swimming pools, and in the interim spend a minimum of money to simply keep them operating.

Ed Sharman recommended announcing a long-range plan of replacement, so that residents who might be faced with a closed pool one summer would understand that eventually they would have a new pool.

, DataTimes