A pool for the people: Spokane parks and schools highlight project possible with voter support

Free swim lessons for every Spokane second-grader; a space for high school swim teams to practice year-round; more capacity to teach special needs kids the skills that may one day save their life; a place for the public to swim in the middle of winter without paying some club’s monthly fees.

These are all promises for Spokane’s first indoor public pool, a collaboration between the Spokane parks department and public school district, if voters in November approve both the parks levy and school bond.

On the backside of the Spokane Community College campus, a swimming pool has sat mothballed since 2020, shuttered amid the COVID-19 pandemic and largely untouched since. There are whiteboards with years-old announcements in marker about open swim times and a puddle of Kool-Aid green water at the deep end of the age-stained, neglected pool.

But if voters approve the funding to rehab and maintain the pool, it could become a marquee facility for both public school students and the public .

Of the approximately 230 projects the two separate ballot items would fund, the pool is one of the dozens only feasible if both of the tax asks are successful this November.

The parks levy would raise $225 million in property taxes over the next 20 years from city taxpayers. The school district will ask voters living within the district to grant the agency authority to issue $200 million in bonds that would need to be paid off over 20 years.

The bond would pay for the estimated $1 to $3 million necessary to renovate the pool, which the college would cede control of at no cost, while the parks levy would pay for continued maintenance. Officials have not yet drafted concrete plans for how operations, such as lifeguard pay and other necessities, would be paid for; swim lessons would be provided to every Spokane Public Schools second-grader for free as part of their curriculum, but entrance fees for the public and other programs are yet to be determined.

Compared to the tens of millions of dollars necessary to build a public aquatic center from scratch, Spokane Public Schools Superintendent Adam Swinyard believes the college’s facility is a smart investment that fulfills an unmet need in the community, both to get kids away from their screens and to keep them safe in a community with many waterways.

“This will definitely be a significant foundation for (second-graders) to give them those critical water safety skills and awareness to mitigate that drowning risk that we unfortunately face in our community,” said Swinyard, who was himself a swim instructor in high school. “With all of the lakes and rivers and spaces that kids can swim in the summertime, often with not a lot of adult supervision – we have our city park’s (outdoor) pools, and we have great lifeguards, but there is a lot of unsupervised swimming that happens in Spokane County.”

A parent wanting to get their kids signed up for the city’s swim lessons currently faces an uphill battle, Swinyard said.

“One of the realities now is you have to sit by your computer and keep clicking refresh because the slots just fill up that fast for those summer swim lessons,” Swinyard said.

Commonplace in West Side schools, Spokane does not have the facilities to offer swim as a school sport – but could if the indoor pool was renovated, Swinyard added.

Officials are also excited to be able to offer more robust capacity for special needs swimmers who require additional accommodations and face higher drowning risks.

“We currently swim at Whitworth Aquatic Center… and we’re pretty maxed out there,” said Alice Busch, supervisor for therapeutic recreational services for the city. “I have swimmers that like to compete in the Special Olympics and would like to swim more than one time a week.

“Drowning is very prevalent for kids with autism, and they’re very attracted to the water, but may not have the other coping skills to know when to go in the water and what to do when you get there,” Busch continued. “This would be a great environment, a little smaller, a bit more control that we could offer, more than just four weeks in the summer.”

The city could train lifeguards year-round and offer swim lessons to all ages, added city recreation supervisor Josh Oakes. From summer to winter, the city could expand programs from water aerobics, recreational swim teams and more.

But only if voters decide the juice is worth the squeeze.

Park and school officials have come to the public hand-in-hand, pitching voters on a partnership called Together Spokane that could touch every corner of the city in myriad small and some significant ways.

They argue that the partnership means taxpayers get more for less money than if the two went at it alone, which may convince voters to be more favorable toward the Spokane school district’s bond than in 2024. Advocates point to the successful dual campaigns in 2018 between the $495 million school bond and the $77 million library levy as proof that such a partnership could be successful.

The ask from parks, being a levy, only needs the approval of a majority of voters to pass. The school district’s bond, however, requires 60% under state law. When the district asked voters to approve a bond last February, it failed with around 56% of the vote.

The plans for Spokane’s schools and parks have become so deeply entwined that it is difficult to tease out exactly what either entity would accomplish and on what timetable if voters approve only one of the two ballot measures.

The answer is simpler for the pool: it just won’t happen.