(Lake Park)– City leaders in Lake Park say they’ve learned some new details recently regarding the status of the swimming pool. As we reported previously, the pool is closed for the season after city crews discovered some damage while attempting to replace a liner.
Council member Whitney Thiessen gave an update after being asked about the matter by a citizen at the conclusion of Monday evening’s Lake Park City Council meeting. Thiessen says core samples of the concrete came back much better than expected, with the only deterioration being in the area of some steps leading down into the water. He says other than some drain work, pouring the new steps and putting in a new liner is all that is needed. The city is currently seeking proposals to have that work done…
“The plan is to re-use the concrete, but the pool won’t be open this year because by the time, concrete has to cure for 28 days by a pool before you can put the liner on and by the time that we would have the liner in and everything it would be past the season and it doesn’t make sense to do it, so. We’ll have the pool with the current footprint open next year is the plan. And I know there’s a lot of interest in trying to do something with a new pool in the future. A liner has about a 10 year life so that gives us time if we want to do something in the future, we can attempt to fundraise, we can attempt to plan. Maybe that would give us enough time actually to get grants. There’s a lot of grants out there for swimming pools but on this short of timeframe, we wouldn’t have gotten any of them.”
Councilman Nathan Judd added it was never the intent to permanently do away with the pool…
“I think I speak for the whole council, we’re definitely in support of keeping that pool. A lot of us have kids, a lot of us have grandkids. It’s a great draw to the city.”
City Administrator Marie Mathiesen says the goal is to get a contractor lined up very soon to get the work done this season so the pool would be able to open in a timely manner next summer.
