Seymour resident Wanda Shafer has had one knee replaced and doctors have told her she likely will need the other one done too.

By taking therapeutic water exercise classes two to three times a week in Columbus, the 78-year-old has made her knees and legs stronger to the point where she doesn’t need surgery anymore, she said.

Shafer would like to be able to enjoy such classes closer to home, but there are no good options for aquatics programs for senior citizens in Seymour, she said.

Due to having had skin cancer she can’t be outside in the sun, so that rules out Shields Park Pool and the water at the Seymour High School pool is too cold, she said.

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She also has concerns those facilities aren’t easily accessible to senior citizens.

Shafer would like to see the city find a way to build an indoor pool and recreational facility accessible to people of all ages and physical abilities.

Such a facility could provide aquatics and other fitness and sports programs year-round and help improve the health and wellness of the community’s population, she said.

“We have a growing senior population here in Seymour,” she said. “I think Seymour needs to cater more to the seniors than what they have in the past. It seems like they don’t do enough for the seniors.”

She shared her thoughts with city officials and others Thursday during the third and final public input session for the Seymour Parks and Recreation Department’s 5-year master plan.

The meeting was held appropriately at Shields Park Pool in the concessions area while young club swimmers held practice.

Only a handful of people attended including city Councilman Drew Storey, Mayor Matt Nicholson, Parks Director Stacy Findley, parks board members Matt Levine and Monica Boyer and pool managers Dave and Chris Boggs.

Seymour has had a city pool since the early 1930s when it was built as a WPA (Works Project Administration) project to help put people back to work after the Great Depression.

That pool lasted until the late 1980s when it started to require major repairs.

“The city back then probably got tired of putting expensive Band-Aids on it,” Dave Boggs said.

A proposal to rebuild the pool failed initially, but came back in the late 1980s and passed.

The old pool’s last year was 1989. It was closed in 1990 for reconstruction and reopened in June of 1991.

“So this pool is 30 years old right now,” he said. “It’s been a very good pool for the community.”

Every summer the pool hosts a big swim meet attracting 700 swimmers and their families to Seymour, he added.

That meet brings in around $25,000 for the swim club and another $10,000 in admission fees which goes back to the parks department for the pool, Boggs said.

The meet was canceled this year, however, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Also, all the money made by renting the pool out to other swim teams for practice goes back to the city.

“That’s been a big help this year,” he said.

Boggs said the pool’s most immediate need is a new kiddie pool. That area is outdated compared to other facilities such as those in Brownstown and North Vernon.

He would like to see the kiddie pool redesigned and expanded to include zero-depth entry, more water play features and a splash pad area.

“It needs redone more than anything else,” he said. “Somehow, someway.”

The parks department replaced the water heater this year for the showers. The 150-foot slide is as good as they come, Boggs added, but it will need replaced at some point.

Although the pool has some extra funds to work with from renting out the pool this summer, it won’t be near enough to fund any major projects.

“Some of these big projects are going to take a lot more than that,” he said.

With the pool only being open three months out of the year and then dependent on weather, Boggs said attendance varies.

This year the pool opened a week late due to the pandemic and was only open five hours a day so it could be rented out in the evenings to swim teams.

He said the biggest year was back in 2014 when attendance hit 30,000 people for the summer.

Also attending Thursday’s meeting was former Mayor Craig Luedeman, who now works for HWC Engineering. That company provided visual images of pools, splash pads and other water features they have designed for communities across the state.

Many of the options focused on adding features such as a lazy river, splash pads, zero depth entry points, inflatable pieces and water obstacle courses, drop slides and even a wave pool.

Shade features over the pool have also become popular, Luedeman added.

As for funding such projects, Luedeman said some communities are partnering with hospitals because pools can be used for physical therapy and rehabilitation.

“That might be a funding option for Seymour,” he said.

Cost estimates for projects vary from $500,000 for a splash pad to $10 million for an entire aquatics complex.

The current Shields Park Pool cost $1.3 million to build. With inflation, the same pool would cost around $5 million today.

Storey said he would like to see the city explore public-private partnerships to fund a pool project.

That would have to be the case, Findley said, as most parks departments operate on about 50% of capital funds through the city and 20% through other means such as grants and sponsorships.

“I don’t think, as a city entity, we would be able to do this on our own,” she said.

No idea is off the table, she added.

Resident Tim Molinari said he finds a lot of benefits in swimming.

“It’s easy on the joints, great for cardio, builds muscle mass,” he said.

His biggest problem is finding a place to be able to swim during the day.

“Most of the year if I want to get a workout in around here, I have to get up in the middle of the night, go for an hour swim at the high school and then go back to bed,” he said.

If the city decides to build a new facility, Molinari said it should be big enough to hold regional swimming events to make a greater impact on the community.

“Let’s have a facility we can actually use for the community, have some great events and make Seymour more of a sports community with more emphasis on quality of life and fitness,” he said. “I think a strong commitment by the city for a new aquatics center would be a real strong statement.”

Leading Thursday’s input session was Eric Frey with Administrative Resources association in Columbus. ARa is compiling data from the community and writing the master plan.

Frey said another funding option for a large aquatics project is partnering with the local school corporation, which could use the facility for its swimming and diving program.

The Seymour High School pool is 50 years old and plans are being made to renovate and expand it in the next couple of years, Boggs said.

“I don’t want us to build something and in 10 or 15 years it’s obsolete,” he said. “We’ve got to think ahead 25, 30 years.”

By having an indoor community pool, Boggs said there is an opportunity to serve people who work different shifts and help raise Jackson County in the state’s health and wellness rankings.

Besides the community input sessions, public feedback has been collected through a survey. More than 600 surveys have been submitted so far, Findley said.

Anyone who has not completed a survey can still do so online at surveymonkey.com/r/SeymourPark.

That plan sets the goals, priorities and action steps for the parks department through 2025 and beyond and makes the city eligible for state and federal grants to fund park projects and initiatives.

Findley said from the more than 600 surveys that have been submitted it’s evident more programming is needed.

“Our community desperately wants children’s programming, middle school programming, family events, activities in the parks, additional trails, an updated aquatics facility,” she said. “We’re seeing the same things over and over.”

A draft of the master plan will be submitted to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Outdoor Recreation by the middle of January 2021. After the city adopts the plan, a final version will be submitted to the state no later than April 15.

“The plan really needs to reflect what the community wants,” Frey said.

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Anyone who has not completed a survey for the Seymour Parks and Recreation Department’s 5-year master plan can still do so online at surveymonkey.com/r/SeymourPark.

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