Westlake Group Tests the Waters for Swim Complex

The idea made a lot of sense to Westlake Village dentist Norm Reddick, especially at 3:50 in the morning.

What was he doing up at that hour?

Getting ready to drive his stepdaughter, 12-year-old Shauna MacEwen, to a two-hour swim practice at Rancho Simi Park in the Simi Valley.

And why was she traveling 35 miles in the middle of the night to practice her strokes for the Simi Valley Swim Team?

That’s just what Reddick was asking himself.

The answer: Hard as it may be to believe, there are no private competitive, metered swimming pools anywhere in the Conejo or San Fernando valleys. So Shauna and 30 to 35 other swimmers spend six days a week making the trip to Simi. On three days, there are both morning and evening workouts.

Reddick, Craig McNey and half a dozen others have now formed a panel to explore the possibility of building a swim facility in the Conejo Valley. The Olympic Swim Complex Feasibility Committee will launch a fund-raising drive Sunday at the Westlake Plaza Hotel.

The group has big plans. It hopes to raise $5 million for a swimming complex and $1 million for a maintenance endowment. A lot of money?

The committee is “conservative on funding,” according to Reddick. “We didn’t want a $2 million or $3 million shortfall. No B-1 bombers here with millions of dollars in overruns.”

The committee, however, is not ruling out the possibility of applying for federal or state funds. And it has already cut back on some of the frills of its original plan--which called for an $11-million complex.

“It would be a private, nonprofit operation,” Reddick said. “It won’t cost the taxpayers anything. It would be privately funded and privately endowed and not subject to budgetary restrictions or governmental whims. We would like to have one major facility and let everybody use it. It could happen.

“We looked into a similar pool operated by the city of Cerritos and found that it cost them about $200,000 a year to keep it running. We would hope that the endowment money would pick that up in the beginning, and the spinoff in interest on the money would pick up the expenses.”

The plan calls for an indoor, multipurpose facility containing a 50-meter long, 25-yard wide, eight-lane competition pool, a diving pool and a recreation, instruction and hydrotherapy pool. The width of the main pool would be used for winter “short course” training, the length for the longer summer course.

“You’ve got to train,” McNey explained, “at the equivalent distance that you’re training for. When major international competition is in meters, you need to train in meters. It would be like practicing for a tennis tournament on a larger court than the one you’ll play on.”

Shorter pools can throw off a competitive swimmer’s rhythm and pace by necessitating more turns than required in meets, McNey explained.

The proposed complex would be large enough to accommodate 800 competitive and 1,500 recreational swimmers--and some 3,000 spectators--at one time. The facility would also sponsor child and small boat safety classes, as well as everything from water polo and synchronized swimming to instruction in scuba diving.

There are four possible sites for the complex:

--Part of the land on which the Westlake Golf Course currently sits, straddling both Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

--Cal Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks.

--Property owned by the Conejo Valley Recreation and Park District.

--Property owned by the Oak Park Unified School District.

The ideal site, according to Reddick, would be at the golf course. It is owned by real estate developer Daniel K. Ludwig, 86, a New York-based billionaire businessman. Last year, Ludwig announced plans to tear up the current 18-hole golf course, replace it with a nine-hole setup and use much of the remaining land to construct office buildings.

“We would hope that perhaps in a moment of sheer generosity,” Reddick said, “Ludwig would perhaps be interested in constructing the complex. People are against a development on the Ludwig property, but they haven’t proposed anything else. That’s where we come in.”

Attorney Allen F. Camp, Ludwig’s local representative, failed to return several phone requests for a response.

Westlake’s mayor sees no role in the complex for the city.

“We are not getting involved in any way, shape or form,” Mayor Irwin Shane said. “Unless they can get the golf course, I don’t see how we can help. I wish them a lot of luck. It’s a great concept and there sure is a big need for it.”

Reddick said he thinks construction of a Cal Lutheran pool is eight to 10 years away. “They would match the funds we could raise but we would then have to work our pool time around their classes,” he said.

Responded Cal Lutheran President Jerry Miller: “We have had informal discussions with Norm Reddick, but we have not had a formal proposal. If and when it is presented, we would deal with it on its own merits. The land is available.

“I couldn’t put a time frame on it. If someone came forth with the money needed, it might be done in six months to a year. If it was money from the college, it would require a larger time frame. We would have to consider where the money comes from and where it (the project) fits in with our other priorities.

“The one thing we have available, that is scarce in California, is good land on a good site.”

Greg Mercier is president of the Conejo Swim Assn., an affiliate of United States Swimming, a feeder organization for the U.S. Olympic movement.

“There are only so many who can fit into our program if we don’t get improved conditions,” Mercier said. “I don’t know how long we can maintain the program at the present size.”

Or at the present cost. The Conejo group’s swimmers have been forced to use the Thousand Oaks and Newbury Park high school pools and to pay for the cost of heating those pools. That cost, according to Mercier, is about $18,000 to $20,000 a year, and is raised by 100 families.

“The schools decided that in the post-Proposition 13 era, to heat pools on a year around basis is a luxury they can’t afford,” Reddick said.

Although they are helping to foot the bill, Conejo Swim Assn. members must still wait until late afternoon or early evening to use the school pools.

“We are not going to be able to go on like that. It’s ridiculous. Parents don’t want to send their kids into the cold and the dark to practice,” Mercier said.

“And the heat could be turned off,” Reddick added. “It’s silly to have it that way. There should be a facility for the young, the old, the handicapped and those interested in water safety.

“Last year, a baby drowned in a local club and that got a lot of people upset that there wasn’t a better program. There were no lifeguards on duty because it was a private club. It’s too bad kids don’t have a place to go where they can learn what they want to learn about water safety. There are not enough swim programs in safe environments.”

Few will argue that the best environment right now for swimming is Orange County’s Mission Viejo. That ambiance is the model for the feasibility committee, as well as its long-term goal.

“Right now, the place is Mission Viejo,” Reddick said. “I don’t think when they built it they had any idea it would take off and become internationally known. (Coach) Mark Shubert is the guru out there right now. The kids focus on the guru. When he goes somewhere else, so do the kids.

“We would like to be on line to be the next swimming force in Southern California. It (the complex) could bring a lot of recognition to this area. It will happen. Coaches will come because they like to work in a nice area.

“The property values in a place like Mission Viejo go higher because people move there just to swim. The tax revenues collect in the city coffers when guests and visitors come in to watch competition. There are also residual economic benefits.”

McNey estimates property values could rise 5% in the area, translating into millions of dollars for residents.

“Mission Viejo has benefited because people have heard of it,” Reddick added. “We feel there are similarities with this area in terms of sports awareness. There is plenty of raw talent out here.

“Somehow or other we’ve got to get a 50-meter pool in this valley. It may not be a state-of-the-art facility, but there is going to be a pool here in the next three to five years. What we want to do now is just toss the ball up in the air to see if anybody will take it.”

Reddick and his group plan to get that ball rolling Sunday at their reception, which will run from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Expected to attend are Olympians Greg Louganis and John Nabor, Steve and Bruce Furniss, Olympic diving coach Sammy Lee, Olympic synchronized swimmer Candy Costie-Burke and U.S. Olympic divers from every year dating back to 1948. Tickets to the affair are $25.

“With all the work my daughter has done,” Reddick said, “the least I can go is to get her a pool to swim in. At least I can say I did my best.”

If he succeeds, he’ll be able to lay back and enjoy it, at 3:50 every morning.