Letter: Please vote yes on pool bond

Published 6:15 am Thursday, September 29, 2022

To the Editor:

Please join me in voting yes on bond 12-85!

I am excited about the prospect of an updated, up-to-code pool that all residents can enjoy. Our community lacks recreational activities to serve all ages. The new pool will be an essential facility providing a safe and healthy place for residents. It will be a place where kids can learn to swim, youth of all ages can take part in swim team and compete at swim meets, adults can swim laps and recreate, and seniors can get low-impact exercise.

We are far too remote of a county to have to drive over an hour to access a community pool. An unsupervised swimming hole in the river is not an acceptable alternative to a public pool staffed with trained lifeguards and swim instructors. The risk of drowning is real. Let’s not wait for a tragedy to drive home the need for a safe place to swim.

Certain groups have complained about a lack of transparency. This is inaccurate. Formal public meetings regarding a pool replacement plan have been held since 2017, but discussions have been ongoing for 25-plus years. Yes, revisions have been made along the way but all included public involvement. Reports were published in 1997 and 2009 that recognized the need for a new location and the clear winner from a planning standpoint was Seventh Street. Since the 1997 report, all but two potential pool locations were eliminated from consideration by FEMA floodplain revisions.

The point has also been raised that the costs will go up. That could be true! The longer we bicker about misinformation or personal conflicts, the more inflation will affect costs, and the more likely we are as a community to lose $2 million and end up paying the entire construction cost without grant funding. Seventh Street is the right location and now is the right time to move forward.

Please vote “yes” so the children in our community can have access to a safe place to swim, just like previous generations have had access to theirs! Vote yes on 12-85!

Ashley Armichardy

John Day