Area Swimmers Lack Facilities, Not Class

It was nice to see an article on swimming in the Valley edition. However, your article entitled “Valley Teams Outclassed in Swim Finals,” concerning the Southern Section 4-A Division, seemed to indicate a lack of understanding about California swimming.

Perhaps you don’t realize how different the conditions are for swimming between Orange County and Ventura County. In Orange County, there is tremendous civic and financial support behind the swimming programs; in areas such as Thousand Oaks, the support is minimal. In fact, Thousand Oaks doesn’t have a public swimming pool. Our USS teams must vie for space in high school pools.

For several years a group called Citizens for the Thousand Oaks Sports/Swim Center has been trying to interest the city in building a public swimming facility like the ones at Irvine and Cerritos and is now hoping that such a facility can be included in the new Jungleland development proposal.

Perhaps with a little more public support and a lot more pool time, our Ventura County swimmers would not in the future be “outclassed” by Orange County’s.

KATHLEEN L. HOCKEL

Thousand Oaks