LAKEPORT, Calif. – Faced with high costs for renovating and refurbishing the current Westshore Pool, the Lakeport Unified School District plans to move ahead with construction of a new pool, a project to be financed through a 2014 voter-approved bond measure.
District Superintendent Erin Smith-Hagberg said a timeline for when the construction will take place has yet to be determined.
Funds for the new pool project will come from the Measure T bond that voters in the Lakeport Unified School District approved in November 2014.
The $17 million bond measure is meant to fund new facilities including the pool and a fitness center at the high school; expansion of current cafeteria and kitchen facilities; upgraded playgrounds and play structures; improved roadways, utilities and grounds; Americans with Disabilities access projects; and an overall modernization of school facilities in order to embrace a new learning environment, among a lengthy list of projects.
Smith-Hagberg said the first series of Measure T bonds was sold, and totaled $6 million.
The latest financial summary report of the Measure T Bond Program gives a budget number of a little more than $2.1 million for the new pool. Of that, so far, just over $300 has been spent for a pool area soil analysis.
The Westshore Pool was built next to Clear Lake High School in 1973, and over the past 43 years has served not just as a center of recreation for the community at large but also a place where children learned to swim, a key skill because of nearby Clear Lake.
Lakeport Unified owns the pool, however in 2004 the district entered into a 20-year memorandum of understanding with the city of Lakeport, which under the terms of the agreement operates the facility during the summer.
Smith-Hagberg said the goal is to let the city of Lakeport keep the pool open as long as possible – specifically, for the coming summer – while the district prepares to begin the process of designing and constructing the new pool.
“This summer we are going to have swim as usual,” confirmed Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira, adding this is expected to be the last summer for the current pool.
Jennifer Hanson, president of the Channel Cats swim team, said the team will get to use the pool once again this summer. Currently they are using the pool at Quail Run Fitness Center.
Hanson said the Westshore Pool is old and needs to be resurfaced at the very minimum. The growing team – which helped advocate for the bond that includes the pool as a project – would benefit from the use of a new pool facility.
The timeline for the pool project will depend on the first phase of projects being completed, Smith-Hagberg said. That list includes a project from each of the district's schools.
The first construction project to get under way occurred last summer and included installation of new door entries, rain gutters, drains, ramps and sidewalks at Terrace Middle School, the district reported.
Other projects Smith-Hagberg said are slated to be included in the first phase are new indoor and outdoor eating areas and a culinary kitchen at the Clear Lake High School cafeteria, the Terrace School library and media center, and new playground access and modernization of classrooms at Lakeport Elementary School.
The new Westshore Pool complex is scheduled to be in the second phase of Measure T projects, according to the district's bond master plan.
Smith-Hagberg said the new pool is intended to be built at the same time as the high school's new fitness center, as the two facilities will share parking.
The pool now sits on a small knoll, which has created issues for wheelchair access. Smith-Hagberg said the plan is to demolish the current pool and lower the building pad by removing soil, which will be used to backfill other projects in order to raise them out of the floodplain.
Concerns arise over the existing pool
A few years after the city and district signed the 2004 memorandum of understanding for the pool's operation, budget cuts caused the district to stop contributing to pool costs and repairs.
The city, however, continued to pay for upkeep and maintenance, and used a combination of grants and general fund money for a major resurfacing of the pool in 2007.
At the end of 2013, the Lakeport City Council began to approach the district about once again contributing to the pool's operation costs.
As the district was exploring its options, over the 2013 Christmas holiday break Smith-Hagberg discovered in the district's files a December 2003 letter from the Division of the State Architect – the agency responsible for oversight and certification of K-12 school construction projects – that raised issues about the pool's accessibility and structural safety.
Subsequent meetings between state, school and city officials concluded that the pool had not been certified by the Division of the State Architect, which continued to raise concerns about the stability of the structure. That caused the district to stop allowing students to use the pool due to liability concerns.
In the spring of 2014 SHN Consulting Engineers and Geologists of Willits completed a report – that was reviewed by the California Geological Survey – that found the ground in which the pool was built was stable.
However, because the pool had not been state-certified, the school district maintained it could not allow students to use the facility.
Because of the testing and associated delays, the city of Lakeport could not get the pool ready for an open public swim that summer, so the pool was used only by the Channel Cats at that point.
The pool did, however, open for a full summer season in 2015.
Silveira said the summer 2016 swim will start as soon as school is out. She said the Channel Cats typically start using it before then.
As for what is expected to happen with the memorandum of understanding between the district and the city of Lakeport for pool operation, Silveira said, “We haven't gotten that far yet.”
Regarding that agreement, Smith-Hagberg said she will want to go back to the drawing board since they will have a new pool. At that time, she will want not just the district and city at the table, but also the county, which has not contributed regularly to the pool.
Both city and district officials have urged the county to contribute financially, as pool attendance reports show that the majority of children and adults who use it come from outside the city of Lakeport.
Next steps for the new pool project
Upgrades to the Westshore Pool were included in the list of projects presented to voters who approved Measure T in 2014.
Smith-Hagberg said the Division of the State Architect hired a pool specialist, whose study concluded it was not a fiscally sound option to upgrade the pool but instead it was preferable to build a new one.
She said there is still a lot of work to be done to determine particulars of the new pool, including its exact size and and design.
The school's master plan includes a sketch of the pool complex, but the design is not detailed and gives mostly an overview of its location and orientation to other facilities on the campus.
In addition to the bond's overall master plan committee, for every single bond project separate committees are being established to weigh in on the project specifications, Smith-Hagberg said, with people who use the facilities being asked to contribute input and suggestions to help shape the outcome.
“We want to use the public's money very wisely,” Smith-Hagberg said.
In the case of the pool, Smith-Hagberg said she wants representatives from the district, city, county and Channel Cats on the pool committee, adding the Channel Cats team knows a lot more about the pool than the others.
Hanson said she also sits on the bond oversight committee, which meets four times a year to approve expense reports.
She said she wants to see a pool that is designed for competitive swimming, and she hopes it could be ready for the 2017 summer season, although that timeline is yet to be determined.
The Westshore Pool has historically been a place where the community's children have learned to swim, which Lakeport City Council members – in supporting the pool operations and expenses – have indicated is critical because of Clear Lake.
Hanson said the swim team is the only organization training local children to swim. Many of those children have gone on to swim competitively with the Channel Cats and its high school team. Some of those top swimmers have, in turn, continued on to swim at the university level.
This year, the high school swim team has 25 members, the biggest team yet, said Hanson, adding that the Channel Cats finished the summer with 210 swimmers – a record number – with 150 of those swimmers being brand new.
“We're just really focused on teaching these kids to swim safely,” she said.
She added that she hopes the district will add swimming to the physical education program once it has a new pool that is available to students. Hanson said it doesn't make sense for children to know how to play badminton but not to swim, and she said not offering swimming is akin to taking driving classes out of school.
Hanson has been president of the Channel Cats for some 16 years. The team's coach, Agustin Merodio, has been involved for about the same length of time, she said.
“We're going to stick around at least long enough to see this pool built, that's for sure,” Hanson said.
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