Funding of Simi Valley Pool in Question : Aquatics: Impending closure of popular facility raises issue of which public agency should pay operating costs.

The announcement last week of the impending closure of the Rancho Simi Community Park pool hit middle-class Simi Valley like a stone dropped into the pool’s clear blue waters, sending out ripples of discontent that have extended to the Atlantic Ocean.

The shutdown, scheduled for September, endangers the swimming, diving and water polo programs at Royal and Simi Valley highs. It also threatens to displace the 90 members of Conejo Simi Aquatics, one of the top age-group swim programs in Southern California, as well as thousands of recreational swimmers.

The city’s three most significant public bodies--the school district, the recreation and parks district and the City Council--will discuss the issue at a joint meeting Tuesday at City Hall.

And the potential loss of one of the city’s most utilized public facilities has troubled many people in the suburban municipality who are accustomed to such services as a well-maintained swimming pool--the only 50-meter public pool in Ventura County--in return for their tax dollars.

“I would like to see the officials in the community challenge this budget a little more,” said Steve Snyder, the Royal swimming and water polo coach. “Taxes are being raised, services are being cut. Where’s the money going?”

Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton understands Snyder’s frustration.

“The taxes that we pay aren’t available to do the things people think they should be available to do,” Stratton said. “We always say, ‘We need things for kids to do.’ Here’s something for kids to do, and now because of a lack of money, we’re going to close it. It’s very frustrating.”

The announcement also galvanized at least one person on the Eastern seaboard to draft a letter to the park district arguing against the pool’s closure.

“It would be a big mistake to close the pool,” said former Royal and Harvard University All-American swimmer Stacie Duncan, now an assistant on the Harvard women’s team. “It would kill swimming in that area if they shut that down, and that’s a scary thing, considering how the population in Simi Valley has grown.”

Their voices are three of many upset by the Rancho Simi Recreation and Parks District’s announcement last week that it will no longer help fund the approximately $108,000 annually required to maintain the pool, which opened in 1978 and is owned by the park district.

The park district, faced with $1.138 million in budget cuts, has informed the Simi Valley Unified School District that unless it can foot a greater share of the maintenance bill, the pool will be closed in September for the 1993-94 school year. Currently, the school district contributes $40,000 annually to pool costs.

Regardless, the pool will remain open every summer, but its closure in the fall would be the third such shutdown of an area pool in two years. Simi Valley High’s pool lies in a state of disrepair, and the Sycamore Drive Community Center pool will be closed this summer for the first time in 25 years.

Diana Riley, the park district’s aquatics supervisor, said that there were 17,000 paid admissions to the Rancho Simi pool last summer. During the first four months of 1993, the Conejo Simi Aquatics swimmers alone accounted for more than 5,500 pool uses.

In addition, the Marmonte League swim finals were held at the pool Friday for the 14th consecutive year. The pool also is the site of the Royal Invitational swim meet each April, which this year drew more than 1,100 competitors, and the venue for annual meets on Memorial Day and Labor Day that each draw an estimated 1,000 swimmers.

Royal’s aquatics programs are among the most prominent in the area. In Snyder’s 13 years as coach, the water polo team has won 12 consecutive league championships and the boys’ and girls’ swim teams have each won two league titles.

Stratton asserts that the school district should pay to keep the pool open. School district president Judy Barry favors keeping it open but is unsure where the district would find the money. Park district officials say their department is hamstrung, caught in the vise-like grip of the state budget crisis.

Will the pool stay open? Who will pay? And what will happen if it closes?

Those questions will be posed at Tuesday’s meeting, but city officials won’t be discussing the matter alone. Swimmers at a recent meet passed out fliers urging attendance.

“SAVE OUR POOL,” the fliers read. “Parents bring your kids. Swimmers bring your folks.”

The meeting’s impact is unclear, but the Simi Valley swimming community is not happy with the situation.

“I’m absolutely devastated by this,” Snyder said. “It’s eating me up inside. I can just visualize the faces of some of these young brothers and sisters (of team members) who are just dying to get in there. I ache to think . . . that they won’t be able to participate.”

If the pool is closed during the school year, Snyder said, the Royal swimming, diving and water polo programs “would cease to exist.” Royal has about 150 students on the three teams and Simi Valley more than 60.

The Conejo Simi Aquatics program would lose at least half of its 90 swimmers who train at the pool, and the other swimmers would be forced to travel to the pools at Thousand Oaks or Newbury Park highs, said CSA Coach Kathie Duncan, Stacie’s mother.

But those are not the only consequences.

Everyone with a connection to the pool agrees that the facility is most importantly a valuable community resource, home to not only successful athletic teams but to many public programs.

Countless people learn to swim at the pool, which is open 16 hours a day in the summer. It serves as host for exercise programs for adults and senior citizens, special programs for the handicapped, provides jobs for youths as lifeguards and swim instructors, and is a safe, healthy environment for children.

“It gives kids a place to go and have fun,” Riley said. “It’s amazing how many kids go to hang out at the pool. That’s their outlet. What are they going to have to do?”

That void would have a profound and damaging impact on the swimmers’ lives, said Barry, the school board president whose daughter swam for Royal in the mid-1980s.

“Extracurricular activities are the reason a lot of these kids are staying in school,” she said.

Three current Royal water polo players--Jack Kocur, Ralph Radka and student body president Myles Bozinovski--will play water polo for NCAA Division I teams next season, joining a distinguished list of former Royal swimmers and water polo players who have advanced to the college level.

Greg Galloway, a junior on the Royal water polo and swim teams, hopes to parlay his water polo ability into a scholarship.

“If I can get into a four-year college, that would be great,” he said. “But if they close the pool down, there go my chances.”

His and many others’ hopes hinge on the tenuous financial climate, locally and state-wide.

Park district funds--over half of which are provided by local property tax revenues--were slashed by $1.138 million after the 1991-92 fiscal year because the state mandated that local governments shift part of the property tax revenue from the park district to the school district. The state ordered that change to relieve itself of some of the burden of funding public schools. “It’s not the city’s fault or the park district’s fault,” Stratton said. “It’s the state’s inability to balance its budget.”

Al Church, assistant general manager of the park district, said the department expects another $1 million to be cut from the agency’s budget for the coming fiscal year. That anticipated shortfall prompted the park district to notify the school district of its inability to cover pool maintenance costs.

“It was a very, very agonizing decision for our agency and our staff,” Church said. “It would break my heart personally to close down a magnificent facility like this. We all worked too hard to break ground and get water in it.”

Church said that in order to keep the pool open year-round, about $50,000 needs to be added to the $40,000 currently paid by the school district and the $15,000-$20,000 generated by the park district from renting the pool to swim teams.

Stratton thinks the responsibility lies with the school district.

“I think this is one where the school district is going to have pitch in their fair share and say, ‘This is important for the kids,’ ” he said.

“There’s a lot that can be done short of closing the pool,” said Bonnie Carpenter, the park district board chairwoman. “The board wants very much to keep the pool open. It’s a beautiful facility and we know how many people depend on it.”

Including, of course, the swimmers themselves.

“It’s been really sad,” said Alisa Valdez, captain of the Royal girls’ swim team during a recent swim meet at the pool. “Everyone is aware of it and is pretty worried about it. If it closes, we’re going to lose a lot of swimmers because no one’s going to want to drive to wherever to practice.”

Talk of demise was interrupted by a gesture of hope. “Alisa, do you want to sign the petition?” teammate Jenny Treglown asked.

Valdez penned her name on the white sheet, one of many to be filled with signatures and sent to the school board, the City Council and the park district board.

It read: “Please keep the Rancho Simi Pool open during the school year so our school athletic programs, club swimming, invitational swim meets . . . can continue to function.”

Treglown spoke while Valdez wrote. “I can’t imagine them shutting this place down,” she said. “That’s the thing everyone knows about Simi Valley: this pool.”