The Merrill Park and Recreation Commission voted Wednesday to pull the plug on the city’s aging outdoor pool. Faced with the cost of meeting federal mandates to make the 44-year-old pool facility compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements, along with making needed repairs the pool itself, the commission decided money would be better spent toward a new facility.
Park and Recreation Director Dan Wendorf said the city needs to address ADA compliance before the pool would open next year. That would mean putting in sloped entries or chair lifts. The cost of chair lifts for both the adult pool and the wading pool would be about $20,000, Wendorf noted.
“Each pool has to be ADA accessible,” he said.
The problems with the pool, however, go beyond the ADA issues.
“Our pool is leaking,” Wendorf said. “We’ve seen evidence of that on our water bills.”
A liner to seal the leaks in the pool is around $100,000. Wendorf said the pool’s return line plumbing is also leaking, which would mean additional expense.
“It is with a heavy heart that I recommend we close it,” Wendorf said.
City Administrator David Johnson added that ADA compliance issues extend to the restrooms and changing rooms, and even the steps leading up to the pool.
“This goes way beyond the pool itself,” he said.
Wendorf estimated that the cost to fix the pool and the ADA compliance projects would be more than $200,000.
“With the new federal mandates, that was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back,” Wendorf said.
In the 2013 budget, about $45,000 is being set aside for designing a new municipal pool facility. That amount is what the city normally budgets to operate the pool each year. The commission voted to permanently close the outdoor pool and use the 2013 operating budget to study building a new pool.
“This will allow us without delaying to jump right on researching what it’s going to take to get a new pool,” Wendorf said.
The commission is also looking to set up a non-lapsing account to set aside money each year for the new pool.
“That money would be earmarked for the sole purpose of a pool,” Wendorf said.
Once the design and location of the pool are decided, a capital campaign would likely be the next step to raise funds for construction of a new facility, Wendorf said, to at least reduce the project’s impact on the tax levy.
Wendorf said he expects it will be a few years before a new pool is ready to open.
“The pool is a great service to provide to families in the summer time. It serves a lot of people, and gives them a safe and reasonable place to go,” Wendorf said.