Buena Swim Center Gains Support : Recreation: Ventura school board tentatively backs the project at high school. A City Council feasibility study will look at three sites.

Ventura Unified School District trustees have given preliminary support to a Ventura businessman’s proposal to build a two-pool public swim center at Buena High School.

The board did not formally approve the proposal Tuesday night but said that it is interested in discussing Buena as a site. Whether the project moves forward will depend on a feasibility study ordered Monday by the City Council, said Jim McConica, the main supporter of placing a swim center at Buena.

The study will look at three sites for a public swim center: the Buena campus, a park in eastern Ventura and Centerplex, an athletics-entertainment complex proposed for the Montalvo area, McConica told the school board.

McConica said he wanted the school board’s support before he took his plan to the City Council.

As outlined by McConica, a Buena swimming facility would be built using $4 million in city funds. The school district would be required to provide land on an athletic field at Buena High and pay about $62,000 of the estimated $312,000 annual maintenance cost.

Remaining upkeep would be funded through admission fees and rental of the facilities, McConica said. The center would include an Olympic-size competition pool and a deep-water pool for platform diving, McConica told the trustees in a 30-minute presentation.

“My true view is that if we want to save kids, athletics is the key,” he said. “This is a wonderful opportunity.”

Board member John Walker was the only trustee to raise concerns about McConica’s proposal, questioning his figures on how much revenue could be generated. McConica, a former world-class swimmer, said he decided three months ago to begin meeting with school and city officials because he is frustrated by the lack of public swimming pools in the Ventura area.

The board turned down, for now, Ventura runner Gary Tuttle’s request for $100,000 to install an all-weather running track at Ventura High School’s Larrabee Stadium.

Tuttle, a member of the Ventura City Council and the owner of an athletic shoe store, already has received a city promise to chip in $75,000 for the $300,000 project.

He hopes to raise $125,000 by soliciting donations from former students, Tuttle told the board.

However, the board agreed with Supt. Joseph Spirito’s recommendation that they wait until they prepare the 1996-97 budget to decide if any expenditure for the running track is warranted.

Spirito said there are many competing interests for the district’s money, including teachers’ requests for classroom supplies. But Spirito and school board members assured Tuttle that the matter would not be dropped.