Swimming pool proposal hits rough waters

Plans to build a $3 million public swimming pool in the Moran Prairie neighborhood are starting to sink.

County commissioners said this week that the pool they plan to build at 61st and Freya is unlikely to open as expected late next summer.

Construction is supposed to start early next year, but a controversy has developed around the pool because of its placement outside of the Urban Growth Boundary, which is a line around cities where state law says most development is supposed to occur.

“At the end of the day what we are doing is basically putting off an awesome project over process,” said county park board member Mark Patrick, who lives a block from the pool site.

The city of Spokane is barred by state rules from providing sewer service to the site unless the pool is moved within the boundary. At the same time, a state board has told the county that it could lose state funding if the line is extended before the county finishes state-mandated plans for accommodating growth.

The pool’s likely delay was characterized at a Wednesday budget meeting as “an absolute disaster” by County Commissioner Mark Richard.

But Lindell Haggin, the interim director of the Neighborhood Alliance of Spokane County, said a bigger disaster is the county’s lack of growth planning that her group blames for causing traffic and other problems.

She said she supports building the pool, but not before the county finishes the studies that the county was told to do months ago by the Eastern Washington Growth Management Hearings Board.

“If they had done their homework, they would have been able to do this,” Haggin said.

Commissioners approved the construction of the pool last year. Rather than a traditional pool with swimming lanes and a diving board, the area is designed to have slides, fountains, a “river” with rapids and other play structures.

Patrick said others have expressed concerns that a delay could force the pool’s price up if the markets for construction materials change.

“Any type of delay could make the budget go haywire,” Patrick said.

County parks Director Doug Chase said delay or not, he’s confident the pool will be built.

“This is just an extraordinarily important project for the county,” Chase said. “I believe if you hang in and follow it through, sooner or later we’ll be successful.”