Our View: Pool trumps politics
Kids who will be hot this coming summer would not have understood terms such as “urban growth areas” or “annexation clauses.”
They just want to swim.
Kids who are bored this summer would not have understood that Spokane has two governing entities – a City Council and a County Commission. They would not have understood if the county’s proposed $5 million South Side Aquatic Facility didn’t get built because the two governing entities couldn’t work across physical, political and philosophical boundaries.
They just want to swim.
Kids who are lucky this summer will have parents who realized long ago that the Inland Northwest pool culture does not respect city or county boundaries. This summer, North Side parents, dismayed that the city’s Shadle Pool has closed, will load up a vanful of kids and drive to the county’s North Side Aquatic Facility at 18120 N. Hatch Road. The facility opened in August 2005 and has been a success. Some might even drive to Ritzville, where community members taxed themselves to build a state-of-the-art water park.
These adults who think regionally when it comes to swimming want their elected leaders to think that way as well. So they will be relieved to hear that county commissioners and members of the City Council were scheduled to meet Thursday morning to figure out how to make the South Side Aquatic Facility happen.
Spokane County is asking the city of Spokane to extend city water and sewer lines to the aquatic facility, which is adjacent to the outer boundary of the city’s urban growth area on Moran Prairie.
The city was willing to do so, but things had gotten tangled over impact fees and possible annexation of the facility site in the future. A stalemate looked possible.
But after a story about the stalemate ran Tuesday, city and county elected leaders received complaints from constituents who have been waiting eagerly for that South Side water park.
So they are working out the details now and an agreement should be finalized next week.
“It looks very, very good,” said Doug Chase, head of the county’s parks and recreation department.
City and county leaders are wise to work across government lines to get the South Side Aquatic Facility built. It’s a county project, but city kids live within blocks of the proposed site at 61st and Freya, and they will use it, big time.
The facility plan features what kids have come to expect in modern “pools”: lazy rivers, slides and geysers.
Kids don’t care who runs the pool. They just want to swim.
City and county leaders are also wise to collaborate on this shared regional vision for our children.
Kids grow hot and bored in the summer. Trouble can boil up from both those realities. If they have a place to go to cool down and have fun, everyone is the better for it.
The kids, after all, just want to swim.