City Commission discusses Recreation Center Pool

ALAMOGORDO – Residents packed the City Commission Chambers on Tuesday night to hear options pertaining to covering the Family Recreation Center pool.

The topic was brought to the City Commission’s attention after the current pool bubble, which is usually placed over the pool in the winter time, was found to be in disrepair. That pool bubble has since been sold at auction for $2,300, according to Acting City Manager Maggie Paluch.

Many senior citizens were in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting and spoke during public comment in favor of enclosing the pool.

“I want to thank the city for having the pool, first of all, because I represent the elderly population that uses that pool,” said Jan King. “We are passionate about having a pool because so many of us have had surgeries and operations and (the pool) is the only way we can exercise. We swim from 6 a.m. to 8…we’ll come in there and we can barely walk and by the time we swim for an hour, we feel great and we’re able to function again.”

Another point of view heard during public comment was from those who utilize the pool for swimming competitions.

“Our team has been in existence for over three decades in this town and we’ve taught thousands of kids how to swim, thousands more in competition,” said Lenny Miller, coach of the Aqua Shocks swim team. “We’ve put swimmers into the high school team, kids that have come from our team go into college on (swimming) scholarships and we’re in jeopardy of losing all of that if this pool cannot be covered. Our fear is the team will fold if we have nowhere to swim, the kids will go away.”

Commissioner Jason Baldwin said the City Commission understands the quality of life the pool brings to Alamogordo residents.

“Right now we’re operating a pool at $444,000 annually and the pool receives $44,000 annually,” Baldwin said. “Basically, we have a $400,000 subsidy that goes into that pool. I’ve been on the commission for five years and we’ve never once questioned that subsidy. Not once has anybody here said that’s too much to be paying for the rec center or for that pool, because we understand the quality of life and value it has in this community.”

Options presented to the City of Alamogordo by Project Manager Edward Balderrama included a retractable roof, a metal building structure and building an indoor pool.

“The first option is building an enclosure over the existing facility that is translucent…it could have retractable roof panels,” Balderrama said. “The disadvantage of doing this type of facility is because we’re working with the existing footprint of what is there. The Splash Park would not be enclosed.”

Balderrama clarified that it doesn’t mean the Splash Park can’t be enclosed but the engineering is too much and the cost is significant. This option is an estimated $2.5 million, not including tax, the Splash Park or the cost of electrical upgrades.

The second option included putting a metal building over the existing pool.

“The metal building is inexpensive but the problem with it is it’s a metal building,” Balderrama said. “It doesn’t look very attractive, it’s steel so there would be issues with corrosion and how that would work within the pool area. The other concern, again, is how to incorporate the Splash Park area.”

Balderrama said the Splash Park is a concern for the City of Alamogordo because they invested $550,000 in it. The estimate for just the metal building is about $800,000.

The third option Balderrama presented is building an indoor pool.

“Another thing we discussed was building a completely new pool,” he said. “A 25-meter pool, half of the size as what we have. The benefit we have with that is we can do any type of enclosure we want with it and these two facilities would work independent of each other – a winter pool and a summer pool.”

This new pool could be next to the current pool so lifeguards will be able to communicate with each other.

“We’d be able to have both pools open in the summer or maybe just the outdoor pool open in the summer," Paluch said. "In the wintertime, we could have the indoor pool open and possibly let the swim team use the outdoor pool – we’d have a lot more flexibility if we put the two pools next to each other.”

Additional locker rooms would need to be included for the indoor pool. The estimate of a new pool is $1.9 million.

Another option was brought up by Commissioner Erica Martin to purchase a new pool bubble.

Ultimately, Baldwin motioned to table the item and gave direction to staff to pursue looking into a new structure and a new bubble. The motion was seconded by Commissioner Susan Payne and passed 7-0. Paluch said the information will come back to the City Commission at the next Sept. 13 meeting.