District Officials Support Closing Santa Paula Pool

To the outrage of 32 Santa Paula High School swim team members and their parents, school administrators want to turn the city’s only public swimming pool into a giant sandbox.

Supt. Robert Fisher, who said the district can no longer afford to keep the high school pool open, is recommending spending $21,000 to fill the city landmark with sand and disbanding the swim team.

“We have to cut expenses somewhere,” Trustee Al Sandoval said in advocating the closure of the pool, where he and three other board members learned to swim. Officials estimate it costs $27,000 to maintain the pool each year.

If the pool does close, it will be the latest casualty in five years of budgetary woes for the 1,177-student district. This year, teachers agreed to take a 2% pay cut, and three employees were laid off as the district struggled to balance its $4.7-million budget, Fisher said.

Fisher added that swimming was no longer a requirement to graduate and few classes were offered.

Santa Paula Union High School District trustees were set to order the pool closed Wednesday, but--prompted by protests voiced by swim team members and their parents--they refused to adopt Fisher’s recommendation and delayed action until next week.

Pool boosters said they are seeking private financing and talked of organizing fund-raisers to save the pool.

“For some of us, this is the only sport we have,” Tara Nelson, a 17-year-old senior, told the board. “If you close down the pool, we won’t have any extracurricular activity.”

The board agreed to give the boosters a week to present their case, and a special meeting was tentatively called for Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

But some board members--including newly sworn-in Trustee Terrence Nelson III, who is Tara’s father--said the delay may be only putting off the inevitable.

“I know it has an important impact on campus, but it is not the main impact,” Nelson said. He said the district did not receive $440,000 it expected from the state this year and that cuts had to be made.

If team boosters can come up with $12,300, the swim season could be saved, Nelson said. But the pool is in jeopardy after that, without a permanent outside funding source, he said.

If the school does not shut the pool and cut costs elsewhere, it faces the same fate as the Richmond School District, Sandoval said. That Northern California district filed for bankruptcy three years ago and was taken over by the state.

“If the budget goes into a default and there isn’t enough to pay the bills, you’ll end up losing everything,” he said. “This pool has always been a problem.”

Closing the pool to cut expenses first became an issue five years ago when the Santa Paula district came close to filing for bankruptcy, Fisher said.

Since then, he said, he has listened each year to undelivered promises of a permanent, outside source of money for the pool.

When the city withdrew its summer contribution of $6,000 last year, it threw the pool’s viability into a crisis, trustee Shirley Hendren said. Hendren argued Wednesday against closing the pool, suggesting that the district approach several governmental and private agencies, including the city, for money.

But the city’s refusal to rent the pool from the district this year prompted the pool’s summer closure for the first time in 40 years, school officials said. City officials said its summer aquatics program has lost about $7,000 each year.

Given its own budgetary constraints, the city decided not to pay for the pool anymore, Recreation Director Mel Howery said Wednesday.

“The school ran us out of the pool business,” Howery said.

On Thursday, Councilwoman Robin Sullivan was not optimistic about city aid. “The school people have a habit of doing this--pointing the finger at the city,” Sullivan said, adding that she has not heard from any school officials about contributing to the pool.

Parent Vicki Corona also said that she had not heard until recently that the pool was in jeopardy. Her son, Corey Corona, is a three-year member of the swim team.

“June was the first we heard of this,” she said. Corona said boosters should be given more time to find money.

“We should make every effort to save the pool,” Hendren agreed, proposing that the district back a parcel tax if fund-raising efforts fail.

If trustees vote to close the pool Tuesday, the district will pay $21,000 to fill it with sand, a move that many deem as a permanent closure.

“There is no way you can open it after all that sand has been sitting in it for years,” Corona said.