One Pool Day From Open To Close, A Stream Of Swimmers Flows Through Swim Gym Aquatic Center

It looked bleak.

Last fall, the owners of the only public pool in the area were considering closing the Swim Gym Aquatic Center on Idaho Street because they were losing money.

Now, the city of Post Falls is considering buying the pool for $400,000 to keep it open, and the Parks and Recreation Commission already has recommended doing so.

Mayor Gus Johnson and others say the issue should go to a public vote.

Advocates of the city buying the pool say all kinds of people regularly use the pool. One typical day, March 4, these were the diverse users of the Swim Gym Aquatic Center from the time it opened to the time it closed.

8 a.m.

The first pool users of the day, 17 Post Falls High School girls from an aerobics class, strap flotation devices around their waists and wade into the pool for water aerobics.

They run in place in the deep end, using the resistance of the water to get their hearts pumping. In the lap lane, Margie Nordstrom of Post Falls swims just as she does about four times per week.

“I hope we can keep coming here,” Nordstrom says. “I used to do aerobics for years but then that class got dropped and I started doing this.”

Nordstrom and the high school girls are the quietest of the groups that use the pool for the rest of the day.

8:30 a.m.

The first swimming lesson of the day begins. A woman earnestly listens to her instructor, Cheri Backman, explain how to breathe while swimming.

9 a.m.

A new lap swimmer, 52-year-old Mike Rapp of Coeur d’Alene, starts his workout. Although he belongs to a gym with a pool, he uses this one instead because, he says, the pool at his gym is too short. He doesn’t know where else he’d swim. “This is the only really good pool around.”

9:30 a.m.

A couple of women begin water aerobics, lunging across the width of the pool. A new woman, very much a novice, begins a lesson. At Backman’s instruction, she dunks her head underwater for a moment, then comes up sputtering, wiping the water out of her eyes, saying they sting.

10 a.m.

Dylan Eastin, a kindergartner from Coeur d’Alene, starts his weekly lesson.

“With all the water around here, it’s really important to learn to swim,” says his mother, Monica Eastin, as she watches. “That’s why I brought Dylan. I want him to be able to swim before summer.”

Twenty-three third graders from Seltice Elementary School also file into the pool. Half swim while the other half crouch around pool employee Brett Tisdale as he talks about the importance of wearing a life preserver and avoiding hypothermia.

In the pool, some students learn to use a kickboard while others jump into the deep end, diving to the bottom for rings a lifeguard tosses in.

“We decided to do this because there’s a need,” says Lisa Bassett, the kids’ teacher. “Especially this year. I only had five swimmers” who could swim in the deep end.

Each third grade class in the comes for a week at a time.

“They only get five lessons, but boy, you can see the difference,” Bassett says. One girl who wouldn’t get her face wet was diving into the deep end with flotation tubes by Thursday.

11 a.m.

Six pairs of mothers and babies wade into the shallow end of the pool. The mothers gently introduce their children, some of whom are too young to walk, to the water. Later in their half-hour lesson, some of the babies who can walk on their own practice jumping off the side into their mothers’ arms.

Bassett took the same class when her daughter was nine months old a few years ago, she says.

“By the time it was over, she was jumping off the side and I was able to put her face in the water as she jumped in,” she says. “Now, when we go to the lake, she wants to get right in.”

One mother gives her daughter a quick dip underwater. When the little girl emerges, the other women in the class praise her effusively. The girl doesn’t look quite as pleased with her dunking as they do.

11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

More swimming lessons.

12:30 to 3 p.m.

Pool is closed for maintenance.

A little after 3 p.m.

The Coeur d’Alene Area Swim Team takes to the water for its usual weekday practice. Although there are more than 20 kids from 11 to 18 years old, there usually are more. Most of the team’s elite swimmers are at a competition, explains assistant coach Glenn Mabile.

Between 85 and 90 kids are on the team, Mabile says. “One (high school) senior this year is going to Notre Dame to swim for them,” Mabile says. “We have probably over 20 kids going to the regional championships in Federal Way (Wash.) this month.”

At 3:30, he rounds up the energetic group and starts drills of butterfly, back, breast and then crawl strokes. “This group swims maybe 5,000 yards a day,” Mabile estimates.

4 p.m.

Girls from the River City Swans, Idaho’s only synchronized swimming team, start putting on costumes in the women’s locker room for a dress rehearsal. They pull their hair into high buns and slick it into place with clear gelatin, which will keep its hold underwater. Their colorful costumes and sequinned headpieces glitter under fluorescent lights.

“It’s not just laps. Laps are boring,” said 13-year-old Sarah Mykkanen of Post Falls. “I did tap, gymnastics and took swimming lessons and this is a combination of all three.”

Small groups of girls in sequins and shiny matching bathing suits take turns hopping into the pool to perform their routines for parents waiting along the sides of the pool.

“It’s a blast,” says Holly Pokorny, 12. “It’s a lot of fun and a lot of work.” The 17 girls on the team range in age from 7 to 15.

6 to 8:30 p.m.

More swimming lessons. The Coeur d’Alene Area Swim Team holds workshops in which swimmers work more individually with coaches on their skills.

The pool closes.

About 150 people use the pool on a daily basis, estimates Debbie Brodin, the pool manager.

“It’s not like last year,” she says. “Last year, we had all sorts of programs. Now we’re just bare bones.”

1. Council considers purchase of pool at next meeting The owners of the Swim Gym Aquatic Center on Idaho Street, Allen Goodall, and Kevin and Robin Bettis, want to sell the city their pool for what they say they still owe on it: $400,000. If the city buys it, Parks and Recreation Director David Fair estimated it would cost another $40,000 per year to operate for the first three years and less after that. He noted that few public swimming pools make money, but said the city might be able to start breaking even in five to seven years. The Parks and Recreation Commission recommended that the city purchase the pool in January and finance it through a property tax bond issue in May. The City Council will consider the issue and also whether to purchase a popular softball complex, Quad Park, for $1.5 million at its Tuesday meeting at 7 p.m. in City Hall. It will not be a public hearing, but the council will consider the numerous letters of comment and the public input at Parks and Recreation Commission meetings that it has already received. Laura Shireman

2. DETAILS How to get involved To submit your comments to the city of Post Falls about the proposed purchase of the Swim Gym Aquatic Center, write to: Pool Comments, City of Post Falls, 408 Spokane St., Post Falls, ID 83854. Or send e-mail to an account the city has established specifically for comments on the pool. The address is: pool@postfallsidaho.org. Letters to the Editor of The Spokesman-Review can be sent to 608 Northwest Blvd. Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814, or by fax to (208) 765-7149 or by e-mail to kens@spokesman.com.