City Council Dips Its Toe Into Pool Debate

After hearing from more than a dozen youth swimmers, masters swimmers, parents and coaches, the Walnut Creek City Council Tuesday night backed off a plan to close Clarke Swim Center on wintertime Sundays.

As the council discussed priorities two weeks before it is due to finalize a 2012-14 budget, it was clear there was insufficient support for a staff proposal to save an estimated $10,000 annually by the Sunday closures. What brought out a big crowd of swim enthusiasts was a May 15 request, by Council member Cindy Silva, for the staff to estimate cost savings for a full wintertime closure of the pool at Heather Farm Park. The estimate was listed at $184,000 in the council's Tuesday agenda.

The council is trying to finalize, by June 19, the city's budget plan, which  projects expenditures of $67.4 million in fiscal year 2012-13, and $68.0 million in 2013-14.

In the course of Tuesday's discussion, it came up that there was a plan for the Mount Diablo Unified School District to build a pool at Northgate High in Walnut Creek. Council members Silva and Gary Skrel asked city managers to reach out to the school district to jointly plan such a pool for use by school teams and community groups.

"I really want to pursue this opportunity at Northgate," said Skrel, noting that the school district and the city of Walnut Creek have worked together well on joint projects in the past.

The plans are tentative. "The best calculation is that it's two to three years in the future," said Kevin Taylor, head coach at Northgate High and assistant coach for the Walnut Creek Aquabears.

Mayor Pro Tem Kish Rajan was skeptical about loose plans for a future Northgate pool being perhaps "another bad set of expectations." He compared those expectations to speculation about a full wintertime Clarke pool closure, which was "never in my mind a serious consideration." Rajan said he could not support even the Sunday closure in wintertime: "It's too big of an impact for the savings."

Council member Kristina Lawson said she would support the proposal to save $10,000. On a macro level, she said, she would support more appropriations for pool improvements in the city's capital budget.

The city's regular budget, as prepared by staff, includes $750,000 for replastering and measures to ensure code compliance for the Larkey Park Pool.

In the public comments about the Clarke pool, Mike Piazza, the chairman of the board for Walnut Creek Masters Swim Team, painted a word picture: "You ought to come out there some morning at 5:30 (in winter) and see the steam rising off the pool and see how many members are out there. It's a very heavily used pool."

'Shortsighted'

A winter closure would force the 400-member club to relocate, Piazza said. A full winter closure would be a bad, "shortsighted" idea, Piazza said. Responding to questions from Skrel and Silva, Piazza said the club would like to work with city staff to recover some of the city's costs through increased fees rather than winter closures.

USA Swimming referee Leo Lin, who patrols the pool deck and calls stroke violations in sanctioned meets, called the Clarke pool a "Motel 6 compared to a Hilton, maybe a Marriott," the latter being other area pools. "The Heather Farm facility is embarrassingly antique," he said. "You should be talking about trying to rebuild it." The latter line drew applause from dozens of swim advocates who crowded the council chambers at City Hall.