EDITORIAL: Silver Lake Pool afloat for one more year
May 8—"Like the mythical Phoenix rising, so have risen the hopes of an even brighter future for Silver Lake Pool despite this summer's previously planned closing."
So wrote Heidi Granstrom, one of the organizers of Save Our Silver Lake Pool, a citizens group that raised more than $34,000 for operational expenses to reopen Rochester's oldest pool ... in 2004.
On Tuesday, the Rochester Park Board agreed with a City Council plan to pull the Silver Lake Pool out of the city budget scrap heap and operate it for one more year ... at a cost of $95,000. And that doesn't include permanent fixes of the 43-year-old pool's many shortcomings.
"It's a one-year fix," said Park Board President Linnea Archer. "We are not really fixing Silver Lake pool, we are just opening it up with duct tape and Band-Aids so it is open."
Under the council's plan, $45,000 will come from its contingency fund to support operations, and the Park Board will contribute $50,000 to cover anticipated maintenance and repairs.
But our city of 115,000 deserves more than two aging pools, leaving Foster Arend Pond and Cascade Lake out of the mix. Yes, Silver Lake Pool averaged only 71 swimmers daily in the years before it closed, but that low usage could be attributed to aquatic centers in nearby towns, such as Kasson, siphoning off our swimmers.
Parks and Recreation Director Paul Widman says plans to replace the Silver Lake and Soldiers Field pools are part of the department's 2016 Parks and Recreation System Plan.
Maybe it's time to move a new aquatics center higher up the list. Preferably before the Silver Lake Pool's golden anniversary.
