QUOTE(Robert Giacometti @ Feb 29 2008, 08:00 PM)
Its really premature to be making any final decisions regarding this pool.
#1. The new school may be at about 35% to 40% of its capacity for enrollment. When the enrollment reaches capacity it may be cost effective to reopen the pool
#2. The Distrct made a savy financial choice to close the pool for 23 swimmers instead of paying the costs of $150,000 to heat and operate the pool now.
#3. At buildout, there will be 2 HS swim teams, the Sea Otters ( local Club team) and a regional competitive swim team all based in Folsom. Lembi will NOT be able to accomodate all these groups, so the pool at Vista will be needed.
#4. If the city expands S50, it may be awhile before a pool will be be built there, so Vista may be able to accomodate the overflow.
#5. If we want to be a desirable city to live in , then we need to build top of the line recreational facilities, along with cultural arts centers and other amenties. These are what contribute to making Folsom desirable!
I'm new to MyFolsom, and a former long-term competitive swimmer. I feel compelled to make my first post kudos to Mr. Giacometti for the analysis here. I think I can pretty safely say that NO community pool built is ever a profit center for the community that built it. Therefore, factors other than profitability need to be considered, and the list above shows exactly the right ones to to balance against cost. I live in Folsom specifically because of facilities like the pools at Vista and Lembi. This city thinks prospectively, and, seeing the potential for even more growth (south of 50) and the over-subscription of the Aquatic Center (despite its financial woes), this pool makes all kinds of sense for the community.
The city and the school district need this pool to satisfy the demand that the community puts on Lembi. I think the smart way out would be to wait a year to allow enrollment at Vista to increase, then open the pool at the start of next year's high school swim season, and leave it open to the public through the end of that summer. Give residents the choice to swim laps at either pool in the meantime. Given the choice, I would be surprised if
all the competitive teams and swimmers stayed at Lembi. Over time, the Vista Pool will be used to its maximum.
And three other bits of information.
a. I think Lembi has a particularly difficult time staying ahead of its expenses because it has been conceived to be a cheap water amusement park. When you have recreational swimmers and non-swimmers running around a water slide and jungle gym, you need a lot of skilled and expensive life guards. The Vista Pool (which, from what I could see looking through the chain-link fence around it, looks like a competitive swimmer's dream come true) tends only to lend itself to exercise/competition, which requires significantly less payroll (in fact, none at all, if you have appropriately qualified coaches).
b. Darth Vader's comment that a competitive pool needs to be about 79 is dead on. It's like a magic number: much colder during the winter, and you have health and safety risks. Any hotter, and you have a different set of problems. And if you think that seems like a high temperature, put on just your underwear and jump into a pool set to room temperature (68 to 72). It hurts, you can barely move, and you will be blue in minutes. Virtually all pools that run year-round are set to somewhere between 77 and 81.
c. Unless there has been some striking improvement in the last 20 years, solar heating panels on a swimming pool have relatively little advantage. They only work when its hot out anyway, and usually you have to spend a bunch on the electricity to pump millions of gallons of water way up to the top of the building/hill where the solar farm is located. Solar pool covers work pretty well, but again, depend upon good weather to begin with. Balanced against the initial costs of purchasing solar panels and finding real estate to put them in, I understand that the advantage is washed out.
Good, fast, cheap. . .
Choose any two.
