The kiddie pool at Shields Park Pool in Seymour will be closed this year.
Zach Spicer | The Tribune
People who enjoy taking their young kids to Shields Park Pool for the children’s area will be disappointed to know the kiddie pool won’t be open this year.
Seymour Parks and Recreation Department Director Stacy Findley said the pool is leaking 5,000 gallons of water a day.
Chris Boggs, who manages the pool with her husband, Dave, described the situation by saying, “It’s bad.”
“It requires someone to be at that pool every single day checking that baby pool because of the leakage,” she said during a recent Seymour Parks and Recreation Department board meeting.
Findley said the leaking runs onto the hill over to the sidewalk in the park, and Program Director Chad Keithley said the department not only gets charged for the water bill, but it gets charged for sewer, too.
Board Vice President Bethany Rust asked if it could be patched.
“Right now, if you take a plunger to the floor drains, water will just seep up through the baby pool, so all of the drainage underneath the concrete of the baby pool, it’s gone,” Keithley said.
“I think we’ve babied it and Band-Aided it as well as we can,” Findley said.
Another issue with the current design is it’s a rectangle and has a step-down entry. Findley said it needs to be zero-entry, and Boggs said it needs rounded corners.
Plus, the floor of the kiddie pool is slick after a sealant was put down a couple of years ago.
“The bottom of that kiddie pool is slick as ice,” Findley said.
Board member Kendra Zumhingst asked if putting concrete over it would be a temporary solution, and fellow board member Tim Ferret said that wouldn’t change the leaking.
Board President Monica Riley said she’s concerned about there being a “big, empty hole there” and asked if something would be put up to keep people out of the kiddie pool area, and Findley said there’s a fence around it and a gate that could be padlocked.
Instead of doing that, Zumhingst said it would be good to come up with something to keep young kids occupied in that space at the pool. She and Rust agreed to be part of a subcommittee to explore options, and Findley said to include Boggs in the discussion.
“I think if that’s something that we want to explore, we have enough time,” Findley said, as the pool opens around Memorial Day.
Boggs said they may have to reconfigure how lifeguards are scheduled.
“If you’re going to think about putting a rubber mat down … put little kids slides or whatever in there in lieu of water or make it some kind of a temporary water pool, it’s going to change our staffing, and that would be something we need to do before we hire staff in April,” she said.
When Rust asked Boggs what she was planning for this year, Boggs said “in my perfect world,” she was planning for a new kiddie pool to be constructed.
“We needed a new baby pool three or four park and rec directors ago,” she said.
Rust asked about a long-term solution, and Findley said she plans to ask for city dollars sometime this year, but those won’t become available until 2024. She said a new kiddie pool would cost $1.7 million.
“If it would be like $200,000, I could come up with $200,000, but it being $1.7 million, that’s a lot of money. That’s going to require city bond money or big money,” Findley said. “Just a point of reference, our annual operating fund is only $1.1 million.”
Findley also said she plans to apply for funding from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources’ Land and Water Conservation Fund.
“That was the main reason why we completed our five-year master plan because the five-year master plan will make us able to apply for state funds,” she said, noting it requires a $500,000 match.
Also during the board meeting, price increases for admission, season passes and swim lessons were unanimously approved.
Daily admission will go from $4 to $5 but be free for children 5 and under, and season passes and swim lessons will go from $40 to $50.