Spokane’s life aquatic

If anything’s clear from a recently released survey of Spokane residents about the future of city pools, it’s this:

“They don’t want our seasonal pools messed with,” said Taylor Bressler, the city’s park planning and development manager, when asked to interpret the numbers.

City residents are willing to pay higher taxes to renovate outdoor pools and to build a new year-round indoor aquatics center, according to a telephone poll conducted in late March and April for the city Parks Department.

But that same study shows that backing for an aquatics center falls if it comes at the expense of neighborhood pools.

The past few years have seen significant setbacks for swimming in the city with the closing of the outdoor and indoor pools at Shadle Park and of the city’s 12 wading pools.

On top of that, park leaders say, the city’s five remaining pools are deteriorating and some may only have a few years left before extensive remodeling will be necessary.

“I have seen them up, and I have seen them down, and we are pretty down right now,” Bressler said.

Buoyed by the survey results, park officials say they likely will ask voters to approve a bond measure for pools this year or next. Park board members, who have the final say on park funding and policy, say they will determine a path in August after they get results of a study showing options for a bond with estimated costs.

The telephone poll, with a margin of error of about 4 percentage points, was completed by Strategic Research Associates as part of that report.

The study, which is being conducted by ALSC Architects and pool engineering firm Counsilman-Hunsaker, cost $82,000, including the price of the polling.

The city last passed a bond measure for pools in 1983.

Bressler said it will cost roughly $2 million or so to fix each city pool and upgrade electrical and other systems. A 2004 parks board plan for pools said the construction of an aquatics center would cost $15 million.

Park board Vice President Ron Rector said once the new report is released in August, he’d like to move forward with a November vote.

“To me, once you have the numbers, let’s get on with it,” Rector said. “It just seems to me it’s time for the voters to make a decision.”

Rector said he’d like to consider having one bond issue to fix existing pools and to add “splash pads” – shallow water features – to parks that lost wading pools. He said the aquatics center would be best considered in a separate vote.

“It’s two different issues,” Rector said, adding that he spoke for himself, not necessarily the park board.

Park board member Gary Lawton said he’d like a bond issue to include the building of a new neighborhood pool in the northwest part of town to replace what was lost at Shadle Park.

Spokane has traditional municipal pools – large tanks with swimming lanes and shallow and deep ends. The survey said that residents might be up for some variety and would support adding the kind of features that Spokane County has put into a new pool north of the city and will include in another pool under construction at 61st and Freya.

When asked what additions they would want if money were no object, 80 percent said that a water play area was very or moderately “desirable.” The same number supported “a sloped entry pool for small children,” and slightly fewer people expressed support for water slides.

Sarah Ranson, Spokane’s aquatics supervisor, said a sloped entry would be helpful for kids learning to swim. Learning in a traditional pool can be intimidating, she said.

Spokane city pools have a tradition of having no fees for youths and low fees for adults. But 46 percent said they mildly or strongly support increasing usage fees at all pools. They also indicated a strong willingness to pay fees to use a new aquatics center. Ninety-one percent said $4 or more is a reasonable fee for an adult; 61 percent said $6 or more is reasonable.