Burlingame pool to close for January: High school district says facility has much-need deferred maintenance

During the closure, age group swimming and water polo will have practices at College of San Mateo and Mercy. The coaches are also working on setting up additional scrimmages/practices with local teams. Swim lessons will run an alternative schedule for the month of January at Mercy. All lap swimming conducted through BAC will be suspended. Masters swimming will have an adjusted practice schedule held at the CSM. During the January closure, only some adult fitness classes conducted through BAC can be held. The energizer and arthritis classes can’t be held due to alternate site space restrictions. Morning boot camp will be offered for a select period and BAC is working on confirming the option to run some evening fitness classes. All masters water polo conducted through BAC will be suspended.

“It’s such a vibrant, dynamic, positive addition to the community,” said Kim Decker, who has participated in the masters swimming program since 2012. “Like many people who come to swimming, I had come to swimming from running. It’s a two-minute bike ride from where I live. It’s my community. I live alone. I work from home. It’s the one time of the day I get out of the house and interact with other people.”

Decker said swimming with the BAC has made a hugely positive effect in her life and that the closure will be a huge inconvenience since she’ll have to drive up to CSM before 5:30 a.m. Not being a born swimmer, her skills can’t afford to take a month off, she said, as she’ll lose the muscle memory.

“My plan right now is to be ambitious and try to make that three times a week,” she said. “As a sign of my determination, I took my car into the shop today because I never drive it. Maybe I’ll just find a gym where I can swim. The thing that makes masters so valuable to me is having a coach barking out sets and intervals. It keeps you honest and makes you a better swimmer.”

At the same time, the district and city of Burlingame are trying to come to an agreement on pool usage and payments breakdowns. Earlier in December, the district threatened a lawsuit over the city not responding to its requests for more space for its water polo teams and for the city’s maintenance payments for the pool from 65 percent to 91 percent, plus 5 percent overhead. The district contends that it uses the pool 9 percent of the time, but is paying operational costs amounting to 35 percent. Originally, an anonymous donor provided $1.2 million for the pool, while $1.6 million came from the city and $300,000 came from the district. The donor believes the district is making bogus claims about the city’s usage of the pool and is propping up stories for why the district needs more use of the pool.

In the future, the district would like to be able to have access to the pool 13 percent of the time. The city said the breakdown of the city’s usage is more like 69.92 percent and has offered to pay that, plus 5 percent overhead, along with 50 percent of capital costs for the 2013-14 fiscal year. The city proposed going forward this number would be adjusted yearly based on the previous year’s actual usage. Trustee Linda Lees Dwyer explained the board is forming a committee to analyze the city proposal to reach an amicable resolution by early 2015.

Back in early December, members expressed their concerns to the school board about the pool closing for a month, including John Yeager, a longtime resident of Burlingame.

“My four boys all benefited from the pool,” he said. “I just wish that there could be some kind of agreement on how it gets used because I’ve got a 6-year-old who wants to swim.”

Burlingame resident Jeff Byrd noted the facility is extraordinary and that it’s the envy of every place that he travels.

Previously, Suze Gardner, executive director of the BAC, explained that the closure was going to be detrimental to a championship swim meet scheduled at the end of January that swimmers need to train for beforehand.

“They’ve been training for that since the end of August,” she said at a December school board meeting. “We are not advocating maintenance not be done, our request is simply that it’s organized as efficiently as possible. … We love the pool, we want to be able to use it; that’s what it’s about.”

The pool closes Dec. 31 and reopens Feb. 1, 2015.

angela@smdailyjournal.com

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