FULLERTON : Panel to Recommend Winter Pool Closure

The Fullerton Aquatic Swim Team (FAST) failed this week to persuade city officials to keep Independence Park’s 50-meter pool open year-round.

The Community Services Commission opted instead to reluctantly recommend to the City Council that the pool close during the winter to save $25,000.

The commission has been asked to recommend $321,000 in cuts to balance the city’s $79-million budget.

Besides shutting down the pool, numerous community programs and jobs have been cut.

Commission Chairman Chris Feuchter said the panel would “go on record that we balanced the budget on the backs of the youths.”

FAST parent John Hanson told the commission at a hearing this week that the “closure of the pool during that time would be devastating.

Most national and international swim trials take place in early March, and competitors must practice more during the winter to place,” he said.

Closing the pool would force the 105 members of FAST, a private, nonprofit group, to disband because they would need to join other teams that do practice year-round to compete on the national level, he said.

In addition, dreams of Olympic championships would be destroyed for local youths who would not be able to travel across the county or into another county to join another team, Hanson’s 12-year-old son, Eric, said.

“My lifelong dream is to be an Olympic swimmer. . . . Closing the pool would shatter my dream,” he said.

City Council members will discuss the pool closure issue in June.