Current Municipal Town Pool Draining Resources

BY ALTHEA E. PERLEY
Miami University journalism student

Oxford's municipal swimming pool has become too draining for city officials and citizens. After 42 years, City Council has begun a three-year plan to build new, a state-of-the-art town pool.
The tentative timeline begins next year: plans and fundraising will start in 2017, construction in 2018, and the pool will open in time for the 2019 summer season.
Discussion about the need for a new pool, with estimated price tag of $4.4 million, began in 2006. However, when the recession hit in 2008 the pool had to be put on hold.

Since then the town has annually spent thousands of dollars a year to keep the pool up-to-date -- with $22,000 budgeted for repairs and maintenance this year and more than $93,000 budgeted over the past four years combined. The issues usually involve the pool heaters, which are fixed every season.

But it isn't just the cost for repairs that are a problem. Casey Wooddell, the director of Oxford's Parks & Recreation Department, is also worried about access.

“The current pool is not very accessible to those with physical disabilities or elderly individuals. It also doesn’t have a variety of features which appeal to all ages, and that limits our potential customer base.”

Study created in 2006

A 2006 feasibility study considered how to construct a new pool. Then, “in 2009, the City Council adopted Resolution No. 4442, which stated that the most desirable location for the new municipal pool would be at the Oxford Community Park,” said Doug Elliott, Oxford city manager.

The plan then, as now, called for the pool to move from the TRI Community Center Complex at 6025 Fairfield Road, to 6801 Fairfield Road, a mile further from uptown Oxford.

The 2006 study put the price of a new pool facility -- with a pool house, filter building, main pool, competition pool, spray ground and lazy river -- at $4.4 million. That figure has not been updated.

Oxford City Council was able to come back to the plans for a new family aquatic center after including it in its five-year capital improvement plan for 2018.
According to Wooddell and Elliott, the city would now like pool plans to include zero-depth entry for the elderly and disabled; a family pool with interactive water features for kids; and a water slide, along with the previously planned lazy river, competition pool, new pool house and filter building.

For citizens who swim every year, the No. 1 request is warm water. Susan Coffin, whose four sons have participated in the Oxford Swimming and Diving Team, said heaters at the current TRI pool don't work well. "It's hard for little kids to get in the pool at 9 a.m. because the water is so cold."

The city is also considering requests for updated showers and additional chairs with shade so parents and swimmers have a place to sit during swim meets.

Who will be involved?

Once the process begins numerous individuals will be involved, including a steering committee which will help with fundraising, design and promotion in the community. The city manager, recreation director, City Council and Recreation Advisory Board will work with the steering committee to create a facility that benefits everyone.

The community organization most interested in these new plans is the Oxford Swimming and Diving Team. That is why Wooddell is pushing for a separate competition pool at the new facility.

Team on the rise

Just this past summer, the Oxford Swimming and Diving Team broke six team and pool records. And over the past five years, the team's combined score at the the Butler County Swim League Championships has been in the top three, with a second-place overall in 2015 and a first back in 2012.

Coffin -- with sons aged 6, 19, 21 and 22 -- considers the Oxford team "very much a family activity."

"Practices are held five days a week, with meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And parents are always helping to facilitate swim meets as timers, announcers, and setting up," she said.

Swimmers and divers have rigorous practice schedules with the 11 and older swimmers starting at 8 a.m. and the 10-year-old-and-under kids joining them at 9 a.m., Monday through Friday. Divers start at 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. depending on their age. Swimmers from 5 to 18 years of age are allowed to compete.

Meets held at the municipal pool run from mid-June through mid-July, and then the championships are held at the end of July. Currently there are eight teams competing in the Butler County Swim League. Wooddell hopes a new pool will allow for more meets to be held by the Oxford team, and allow the pool to host more community events.

Sandy Payne, the league representative for Oxford, said the "ideal new pool would be a six-lane, 25-meter pool, that is 6-feet deep at both ends to allow relays to start at either end." She also hopes that since the team continues to grow yearly, the practice pool will be separate from the recreational pool so that there is more practice time.

And since the team continues to place in the top three in the Butler County Swim League Championships, "it would be nice to have a trophy case for the awards we receive yearly," Payne said.

Traffic up 32 percent

The current municipal pool has 158 average daily visitors, 40 more a day than a year ago. The town also sold 446 season passes, 38 more than the previous year, and there was a 32 percent increase in total summer visitors since last year, with 15,205 patrons soaking up the sun.

In addition to problems with the heating system and chair supply, patrons see leaks and cracks on the floor of the pool and use aging shower facilities.

All of these pool maintenance issues are draining funds. The swimming pool expenses were $107,000 in the 2016 budget, with projected revenue of $64,000. Additionally, the city budgeted $22,000 for pool maintenance in 2016, up from more than $15,000 in 2014 and an estimated $18,000 in 2015.

"Funding for the project will require that the city issue general obligation debt, a.k.a. we'll have to borrow money to build the new pool," according to Elliott.

"Once plans are complete, bids received, and a contract signed, I anticipate a one year or less construction schedule," he said.

Photo: The Oxford Municipal Town Pool could be relocated by 2019. -- Photo contributed by Oxford Parks & Recreation Department.