PORT ANGELES — Clallam County commissioners are considering an agreement that would allow the William Shore Memorial Pool to expand.
Commissioners will vote Tuesday, Oct. 18 on a memorandum of understanding with the William Shore Memorial Pool District to transfer ownership of the Peninsula Behavioral Health Horizon Center at 205 E. Fifth St.
In turn, the pool district would help Peninsula Behavioral Health relocate the Horizon Center, remove the old building and expand the pool to the west.
A main entrance would be created off Lincoln Street.
“It could be very transformative for this area,” Commissioner Mike Chapman said of the expansion plans.
No commissioner objected to the memorandum of understanding with the pool district in a Monday work session.
The item was recommended by the county Prosecuting Attorney’s Office and the Parks, Fair and Facilities Department.
“I think it’s a win-win-win all the way around,” County Administrator Jim Jones said.
Clallam County has leased the building at Fifth and Lincoln streets to Peninsula Behavioral Health for $1 per year since the late 1980s.
The Horizon Center is a day-use gathering place and support center for PBH clients.
Under the proposed three-way agreement, Horizon Center services would be moved to the main Peninsula Behavioral Health building at 118 E. Eighth St. in Port Angeles.
The pool district would fund the consolidation and remodel.
Jones said the agreement is a “good deal” for PBH because of logistical advantages and problems with vandalism at the Horizon Center. Details on the nature and extent of vandalism issues there were not immediately available Monday.
“This three-way agreement will help Peninsula Behavioral Health to consolidate their programs where they have a better ability to manage them,” Jones said.
“It will help the pool district. It will give them ownership and the ability to expand, do the things they need to do. And it will help us get out from underneath the liability and the burden of owning the darn building and putting money into it year after year.”
While the annual cost of owning the Horizon Center building was not immediately available Monday, Jones in an email said the county spent a “good deal of money over the last couple of years, fixing some major structural problems.”
“It’s nothing but a burden to us,” Jones told commissioners in their weekly work session.
“It would be to our benefit to get out from underneath ownership.”
William Shore Memorial Pool Executive Director Steve Burke has said the pool and pool classes have become overcrowded.
With 83,000 annual visits, pool attendance has doubled since the district was formed in 2010, Burke told commissioners in June.
The junior taxing district has up to $6 million in available bond funding to pay for the expansion without asking voters to approve a bond measure.
The expansion will take place in 2019 or 2020 to give the district time to pay down debt from recent upgrades to the aquatic center, Burke has said.
Chapman said the preliminary drawings depict a “really nice remodel” that re-orientates the pool so that it “becomes more of a signature building on Lincoln Street.”
“It’s a real positive kind of anchor facility,” Chapman said.
Burke has said the “practical expansion” will result in 17 new jobs and bring $3 million to the local economy.
The William Shore Memorial Pool was owned and operated by the city of Port Angeles from 1962 to 2009, when voters approved the formation of the pool district.
Pool district officials signed a memorandum of understanding with PBH on Aug. 10.
“Everything is in place to move forward on this,” Jones said.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
