Officials: Pool will stay open despite deficit
A swimmer does laps at Fred Endert Municipal Pool. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson
Staying happy and healthy in this town can come down to a simple choice: sink or swim.
And though we?re surrounded by wild waterways, for the better part of the year the only option for a dip is Fred Endert Municipal Pool, a place where fitness, health, relaxation and society come together, six days a week, rain or shine.
Many depend on the warmed, half-Olympic size pool for physical therapy and low-impact exercise. Some come to slip and splash on the waterslide during recreation times. About 50 kids are part of the swim club, while 100 people currently take swim lessons, a mainstay of the programming since the pool first opened in 1966. There?s also a new class of pool-goers created by recent facility improvements ? sauna and hot tub enthusiasts.
Draining the coffers
The city made over a $1 million in upgrades to the pool in 2009,
which included the cedar sauna, hot tub, an enormous mural of aquatic
life starring Fred the octopus, an additional swimming lane and a modern
salt-water chlorination system, which makes the water much easier on
the eyes and softer on the skin.
Last year, there were 48,500 visits to the pool, a spike of 8,500
compared to pre-renovation counts, said the pool?s manager Matt
Hildebrandt.
More than twice as many of these visits took place during adult swim times as during family recreation times. ?
And even though the place is frequently hopping, the pool is perpetually a drain on city coffers.
Pool Manager Matt Hildebrandt during a lap swimming session. Hildebrandt first worked at the pool in 1978. He?s since taught thousands of people how to swim. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson
?If we had a hundred-fold increase in usership, it?s still not going
to get us out of jail on that particular case,? then-Mayor Charles Slert
said of the pool during a discussion of the city?s financial woes
during an October City Council meeting.
Shortly thereafter, the council agreed to close the pool on Sundays as a cost-saving measure.
Now city officials are again starting to grapple with a cash-strapped
budget for the next fiscal year, causing public concern that the pool
might close.
No chance it?s going to close, especially after such a huge
investment has been made in the facility, said City Manager Eugene
Palazzo in a recent interview.
He likened the pool to the police department, in that it will likely
never pay for itself, instead drawing on the general fund and grant
dollars.
?It?s a public service,? he said. ?My question is, would you spend 25
cents more to swim? Those are the things we need to look at, but
sometimes when you lower a fee by 25 cents, you get more users and it
balances out.?
Bills, bills, bills
It costs your average patron $3.50 a pop to utilize the facilities, while multiple swim passes are discounted.
The non-profit Promote Our Pool Foundation gives scholarships to
people with disabilities, veterans and the swim club. POP also financed
part of the renovations through community fundraising.
Meanwhile, the pool costs the city about $36,000 a month to operate.
The new facility runs with a $264,000 annual deficit, a hole that is about $40,000 deeper than it was in 2008.
A couple of younger patrons splash during a family swim time at the recently renovated Fred Endert Municipal Pool. Del Norte Triplicate/Bryant Anderson
The price of utilities has nearly doubled since that time, almost
entirely from natural gas used to heat the pool, an expense that
averages $11,000 a month.
There are 18 employees, two full-time positions and 16 lifeguards, mostly high school or community college students.
User fees bring in about $161,500 a year, or $27,000 a month.
Another $56,400 in revenue this year came from a Community Development Block Grant.
?We need to look at ways to lower our costs of operation or up our user fees,? Palazzo said.
Now the city is putting together a feasibility study on a green
energy project, which would use heat generated at the wastewater
treatment plant to heat the pool. The cleaned grey water carrying this
heat would then go into an irrigation system at Beachfront Park.
If it?s doable, this project could eventually cut the pool?s gas bill down by 75 percent or more.
Different strokes
It might be 40 degrees and raining outside, but it?s always around 84 degrees in the pool.
?The seniors would love it to be 86 or 87 degrees. The lap swimmers
would like it to be 80. We try to do something in the middle that kind
of works for everyone,? Hildebrandt said.
In the sauna on a recent evening, a baseball player still in his
teens shot the breeze with a Ukrainian expatriate, a seasoned bather who
has been sweating it out in similar fashion for decades. A woman in her
50s waxed poetic about the perfect avocado with a group of girls in
their 20s. Another guy sat shadowed in the hottest corner of the cozy
cedar box for nearly half an hour, pouring cold water on his shoulders
every so often and staying absolutely mum.
Point being, whether you?re sweating or swimming, fit or working on
it; active or lazy; young, old or somewhere in between ? there?s a spot
for everyone in the pool?s schedule, available online at
www.crescentcity.org/pool.htm
Reach Emily Jo Cureton at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Source: http://www.triplicate.com/News/Local-News/Fred-Endert-Municipal-Pool-Underwater
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