SUN VALLEY : Funds Designated for Repairing Pool

About $1.2 million has been earmarked by the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department to rebuild the pool at Sun Valley Park, a 66-year-old facility closed two years ago for safety reasons.

The pool is scheduled to be reopened in time for the June, 1995, swimming season, said Ralph Lew, project manager with the Los Angeles Parks and Recreation Department. A public hearing on the project has been set for the next three months.

Funding for the project is supposed to come from a November, 1992, ballot referendum providing $122 million for city recreation programs. But that money has not come through yet. So the city plans to borrow from other funds to get the project started early, Lew said.

The project would still have to get public support, but even so, the fastest the construction could begin is sometime in mid-1994, Lew said.

When the Sun Valley pool is open, it attracts about 20,000 swimmers annually, said John Vowels, aquatics director for the Recreation and Parks Department’s Valley region. Right now, he said, the Vineland Avenue facility is the only closed city pool in the San Fernando Valley.

Vowels said that weather and age had taken its toll on the pool: the concrete decking was disintegrating and flaking off, pipes were rusting and the gutter system was falling off.

“Most public swimming pools are built with a 40- to 50-year life expectancy,” said Vowels, who added that the winter rains in recent years had also damaged the pool’s outdoor locker rooms.

Under the renovations, the pool will be replaced and locker rooms will be rebuilt with roofs. Only a central, two-story building that includes a lobby, manager’s office and an upstairs recreation room will remain in place, Vowels said.