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Parks and recreation departments often feel pressure from the community when facilities close for repairs or maintenance. For the city of Tampa, where the intense Florida heat makes public pools a necessity in the summer, resident outcry was much stronger when a neighborhood pool in Williams Park was shut down in 2009 for being non-code compliant. The pool was unsafe because of structural leaking, a poorly performing filtration system, and failing chemical systems.
Williams Park serves an East Tampa neighborhood where—unlike some of the surrounding neighborhoods closer to the beach—many of the homes do not have private swimming pools. Thus, the public Williams Park pool was a community hub where families could play, exercise, learn to swim, and cool off. “When it was open, it was a valuable asset to our community. It gave kids an opportunity to swim and recreate right in their own community,” says East Tampa’s District 5 City Commissioner Frank Reddick. After the pool was closed, commissioners heard from many area residents who wanted their pool back. “[Kids] would see on TV and in the newspaper that other communities had a pool, and those kids were having fun playing in the pool—especially during the summer months when most kids are out of school and it’s hot, and they just want a place to go cool off,” Reddick says.
Calling In Reinforcements
Understanding that the pool had experienced significant degradation since its original construction, city officials took all the right steps to involve an aquatic consultant to assess the true damage to the pool and find the best long-term solution.