BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com

At the request of Councilor Melanee Hand, Los Alamos County Council and the community will be briefed by Assistant County Manager Juan Rael, Community Services Director Cory Styron and Public Works Director Eric Martinez on the progress being made on the Aquatic Center rehabilitation project, community requests and efforts being made to partner with another aquatic facility to be able to provide temporary pool access during the closure of the Aquatic Center. The accompanying slides may be viewed at https://losalamos.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=15980566&GUID=E880B6B4-4EBF-4768-82B1-1B1DE59CEC1A

Community members who have young people on local swim/dive teams are becoming increasingly frustrated with the situation they have been left in with the extended closure of the Los Alamos County Aquatic Center and the County proposal that families travel to Espanola and practice at the Lucero Center Pool. Parents and coaches in the community have reached out to the Los Alamos Reporter and several of them believe the situation would have been handled differently if it involved the football fields or the basketball courts.

Parents, coaches and students were present and several of them spoke during the public comment opportunity for items not on the agenda at the Sept. 29 County Council meeting. Most vocal was James Wernicke, a board member of East Park Pool.

“I’d like to ask Council to direct County staff to send lifeguards to East Park Pool instead of off the hill. You know that asking the community to make that drive during rush hour creates unnecessary traffic risk, wastes their time and money and generates unnecessary greenhouse gas when there’s a perfectly viable option here in town,” Wernicke said.

He noted that East Park Pool has demonstrated that is a reliable community resource. He said Pinon Pool closed early because the heater stopped working.

“The Aquatic Center opening is delayed because there is a pump to be replaced and now there’s a contamination issue to be resolved, Genoveva Chavez (Community Center Pool) needs major repairs and theres no ETA and the remaining community pools have to take in that influx of Santa Fe swimmers,” Wernicke said. “Now the County is making another questionable decision to send people off the hill in rush hour traffic to swim. East Park Pool is 80 degrees, clean, clear and currently open to the public. It is a non-profit operated by the community.”

Wernicke said volunteers help run the East Park Pool before and after work for lap swimming and team practice and that people of all ages and abililties are coming for exercise, recreation and social connection, and they want more. He said everyone has been respectful to one another in the facility and that even commercial pool professionals have remarked that East Park Pool is the best pool in Northern New Mexico right now.

“East Park Pool has stepped up and all we’re asking is for the County to meet us half way. We don’t wnant the County to run our facility – frankly, we’ve seen how they manage their facilities. We’re simply asking the County to assign the lifeguards it already employees to East Park Pool and enter into a short-term agreement to cover $2,000 per week in facility operating expenses such as chemicals and utilities,” Wernicke said. “This would keep County resources working in Los Alamos, reduce unnecessary commuting and give residents a convenient local alternative while the Aquatic Center continues be delayed.”

Wernicke said he expected to hear reasons why the recommendations could not be implemented.

“The County has substantial administrative resources and we’re talking about a relatively straight-forward partnership with an organization that’s been part of the community for over 60 years. Are we really saying the County can not put together a memorandum of agreement for $2,000 a week to provide what its residents are asking for?,” he asked. He continued, ” People here tonight are telling you what they want. This is an opportunity for Council to demonstrate that it can work with the community rather than allow administrative obstacles to stand in the way of a practical solution.”

Although several people spoke, Council followed its usual procedure and informed them that they would not be responding as the discussion of the swimming pool issue was not on the agenda.

County Manager Anne Laurent, however, took the opportunity to address the issue much later in the meeting under her County Manager’s Report agenda item, but there was no indication given after public comment that she intended to do so.

“I think it’s worth mentioning: I know we can’t get into a discussion about it, but I just want to assure Council and the commmunity members that we are working hard on an alternative for the swimming situation with the extended closure of the Aquatic Center,” she said. “Mr. Wernicke is correct, there are challenges towards us meeting the request as stated here with the East Park Pool. Largely the biggest obstacle we have with that is our ability to staff it – the weather conditions related to staff – versus we are looking at an indoor support in getting the Lucero Center open in Espanola.”

Ms. Laurent continued, “But even that, the reason we haven’t done a press release about that is that even that has its challenges. Espanola is down to one lifeguard; they had two. We just heard this week they lost one of the two. We have two guards lined up but one of them may not be with us much longer in that position, so if we are able to open that facility it’s going to be at this point with two staff members and that’s stretching it. That will be limited hours and our ability to be the only ones opening that facility.”

She said she wishes the County had “unlimited resource to open whatever facility and staff whatever facility but we really don’t have those resources”.

“It’s not just monetary, it’s really a staffing issue and it’s also a complication where you don’t – it’s easier for us to work with a government to government agreement and quicker but with a public to private there’s a lot more to consider and a lot more that we would have to work out,” Ms Laurent said. “So that’s really where we are. I do hear the request but our position at this point is it’s really not something we’re pursuing right now despite the desires for us to be willing to do that. So I just wanted to say that for transparency, there will be more information coming on that soon.”

It was at that part of the meeting that Councilor Hand asked for the situation to be added to the agenda.

Parent Mike Hargather lso spoke at the Sept. 29 meeting saying, “If you’ve never been at the pool at 6 a.m. and seen 12 people swimming in six lanes of water, you’ve never seen community. It is an important piece to this community to have that swim outlet, to have the ability to swim for individuals, for exercise, for the social aspects, as well as the children that swim as part of Aquatomics, that swim for teams in town, including the high school swim teams. The delays to the Aquatic Center are hurting their ability to continue to progress forward.”

One parent wrote to the Reporter that she feels those involved in finding a resolution “don’t care about the hard work the swimmers put in and what it means to them”.

“The pool was built for competition swimmers originally. We feel they don’t have an understanding of what it means for swimming as a competitive sport. They cut Saturday hours long ago and they don’t seem to understand what impacts that has on swimmers,” she said. “They should have had a plan in place before the pool ever closed.”

Parents expressed worries about how their swimmers and divers are supposed to prove they are worthy of swimming and diving at college when they don’t have a pool to train at.

“They turned that giant competition pool into a recreation pool, They could have teams bring in money to swim instead of cutting available hours they shouls be extending for them,” a parent wrote, adding that a few years ago, parents asked why the pool could not be open for more hours if the swim teams were willing to pay more money to get more pool time.

“We were told they didn’t care whether the pool made money or not – that they were only there for recreational use,” she said. She said with every canceled practice the athletes are unable to hold, and no way to do double sessions, the possibiity of improving evades the swimmers and divers.

Parents are also questioning why an agreement can’t be put in place with East Park Pool to help keep a swimming option on the hill, but the County is working on an agreement with the City of Espanola for Lucero Pool. They are concerned about the dangerous drive to and from Espanola while the evenings are getting darker along with the drive home after a lengthy practice. They are also concerned about the effect it will have on their academic time and homework as well as their students’ mental health.