City Pool Party
posted by on September 14 at 17:33 PM
Christine Larsen, a Capitol Hill resident and mother of 3, says she’s tired of ferrying her kids to outdoor pools in West Seattle and Magnolia during the summer months. Earlier this year, Larsen founded Project Splash—a “group of neighbors who are tired of driving across town”—to lobby the city for an outdoor pool east of I-5.
Seattle already has 3 indoor pools east of I-5—Meadowbrook, Medgar Evers, and Rainier Beach—but Larsen says while indoor pools are “great for laps and senior aerobics,” a new outdoor pool would act as a community gathering place.
Outdoor pools might seem like an unwise investment for a city that has miserable weather 9 months a year. However, according to Seattle Park’s Aquatics Director, Kathy Whitman, Magnolia’s Pop Mounger pays for itself.
Mounger gets more than 80,000 visitors between May and September, which pays for almost all of the pool’s $400,000 annual budget. By contrast, an indoor pool costs about $600,000 to operate year round, about $300,000 of that is subsidized.
With Seattle’s Parks Department already strapped for cash, and with no new levies on the horizon, I asked Larsen where she expects to get the money to fund such a major project. Larsen says she’s looking for private contributions or county and state funds. According to Parks’ Whitman, Pop Mounger pool was financed through community contributions. “There was no Parks Department money that went into it,” Whitman says. Larsen estimates a new pool would cost between 5 and 8 million dollars.No site has been identified for the pool.
Project Splash will be holding a meeting at the Miller Community Center on October 15th at 7pm and at Meadowbrook Community Center on October 23rd at 7:15.
Yes to pools. Yes to skate parks. Simple concrete bowls play host to simple pleasures.
I've always thought that's what should be done with the big DOT parking lot on S. Massachusetts, next to Colman School. Good luck Christine!
when is someone gonna slog about condi being outed?
http://pageoneq.com/news/2007/Secretary_of_State_who_keeps_private_life_shrouded_coowns_home_with_female__0914.html
@3 how about earlier today?
http://slog.thestranger.com/2007/09/this_is_sure_to_fuel_the_riceisalesbian
I love this post. It's totally boring, but anybody with blood coursing through their veins can't help but read it after seeing the pic. Brilliant!
Yeah!
Thanks for bringing this to my awareness, Slog. Now I'm gonna go tell all my poor poolless CD parents to get on board. I love Mounger but HATE driving 1/2 hour across town for that overcrowded kiddie swim.
Damn! Wild things! Awesome movie, that's all I could think about while reading this.
I love having a pool in my apartment building... indoor, too!
There's places with worse weather that still have outdoor pools.
How about a simple pool, lawns and showers at the M. L. K. Elementary school property in Madison Valley? Everybody dive in! Or is the Bush School, as Larsen says, already buying that location from the city? (In that case, it could have squash courts and a nifty clubhouse where we could watch the tennis white families frolick, at least until the hedges filled in.) Also, Larsen says the U.W. wants to invest in an outdoor pool off campus, so she's thinking we should build a public pool in more northern climes, like Magnuson Park.
Gross me out with that picture, why don't you.
The staggering and heartbreaking genus, Homo.
It's about time Seattle gave its horny topless lesbians a pool to make out in. I'll gladly lend every inch of my support to this cause.
i just wanted to point out that parks isn't strapped for cash, they're blowing money left and right on construction projects these days.
I LOVE outdoor pools. Growing up in Montana we had an outdoor pool that open during the summer only and it was a GREAT thing to look forward to every summer. They are much more fun for kids and the lifeguards get great tans! (I taught lessons there and lifeguarded from my Jr year in high school through college)
Many great memories as a kid going there and many great memories working there in the summers!
Build the outdoor pools!!! YEAH!!!!
When I saw that picture JSL, I thought this was a Mudede post.
But good choice. And a better read than a Mudede post, too.
Thanks.
No money in the parks dept.? Utter bullshit. What mike@14 said. They're blowing hundreds of thousands on construction projects and things people don't even WANT in their local park.
Pool people, get yours.
One of my favorite sleazy films!
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