As Spokane city pools open, officials push levy to help with maintenance

With a busy and hot opening week for Spokane city pools, Parks and Recreation encouraged voters to pass an upcoming levy that would help support maintenance costs for the free pools.

Garret Jones, director of City of Spokane Parks and Recreation, said that with the pools being free, money from maintenance often has to be taken away from other projects so it usually gets deferred.

“We want to make sure that we’re able to provide our free experience with our six aquatic centers,” Jones said. “Really these aquatic centers kind of define Spokane.”

The six aquatic centers scattered around town are the only free public pools in Spokane County. Spokane County pools also opened on Monday and cost $4 for children and seniors and $7 for adults. Spokane had a long history of free swimming until 2009 when the city began charging after the new aquatic centers opened and had higher operational costs. They became free again in 2018.

On opening day for the Shadle Park Aquatic Center, around 180 people attended the pool. On Tuesday, around 177 people walked in within the first hour.

Sophie Winterroth, a manager at Shadle Park Aquatic Center said that in previous summers the pool often reaches the max capacity of 299 people and lines form outside of the gate of people waiting to get a spot.

The pool itself was full of kids racing to the top of slides, parents taking breaks from their children during their summer break and older teens practicing their back flips on the diving board.

“They’re not fighting, they’re entertained, and they get all their wiggles out,” Shelli Deniston said about her kids at the pool.

Donovan Carlson and Jordan Smith, both 15, said during the summer they come almost every other day with their favorite part being the dive board.

Smith said he was nervous when he first started diving around 7 or 8 but he now can confidently do backflips in the water. Carlson said his coolest trick is his gainer flip.

“It’s fun, it’s something to do,” Carlson said. “It’s nice to just jump in and cool off.”

The levy is part of an initiative called Together Spokane which Parks and Recreation and Spokane Public Schools are promoting to fund 200 projects across the city.

Jones said that the park levy and school bond, which voters will see on their ballot in November, would cost homeowners around an additional 2 cents per $1,000 of assessed home value. For a home worth $330,000, the median value of homes in Spokane County, the owner would pay about an additional $96 a year. Parks and Recreation would get $89 of the increase.

Jones said if the levy were to pass, Parks and Recreation would get an estimated $11 million per year that would be used to build new parks and also start a fund for the maintenance of every park and aquatic center.

For Spokane city pools, Jones said many of them are around 15 years old and could use repairs in places like locker rooms and bathrooms but haven’t got them so far because it would take away funding from other projects in town. But with this levy these projects could get added to a list of deferred maintenance.

Michelle Hines, another parent at the pool, said she hadn’t heard of the levy but would probably vote for it.

“I think if it’s going to something specifically like this, I’d be in favor of it,” Hines said.

Josh Oakes, the recreation supervisor for Spokane’s aquatic centers said that this maintenance is important as around 250,000 people use the free pools in the summer.

“They’re almost two decades old and they’re starting to show their life a little bit,” Oakes said. “The levy would definitely help with funding for some of those projects to make sure that we’re keeping the facilities open.”

Oakes said keeping the six aquatic centers free, open and safe is his priority with the pools.

“Not everybody gets to go to Silverwood or Disneyland,” Oakes said. “For some of our kids, this is their summer vacation. We’ll have a lot of kids walk to our small community pools daily.”