PORT TOWNSEND — YMCA officials are uncertain about approaching Jefferson County voters with a pool bond proposal because of overwhelming election defeats of aquatic center measures in Port Angeles and Forks earlier this month.
“The YMCA is rethinking everything in terms of an aquatic and recreational facility in Jefferson County,” said Bill Kush, Jefferson County Family YMCA director.
Several YMCA representatives, residents, educators and youths recently urged the City Council to maintain YMCA programs at the city-operated swimming pool at Mountain View Elementary School, 1919 Blaine St., Port Townsend.
The concerns for keeping the public pool open came a week after City Manager David Timmons told City Council members that the pool is seriously underfunded and just one major equipment failure away from being closed down indefinitely.
Melanie Bozak, YMCA board president, has said residents will have to step up to some kind of proposal to raise the needed revenues to support the Mountain View pool.
Bozak also lamented big losses in Port Angeles and Forks, where the latter community’s new pool, a victim of soaring energy prices, has been shut down indefinitely after two maintenance and operations levy failures in the September and November elections.
‘A great concern to us’
“It’s really hard to say, but its a great concern to us — the fact that they both failed,” Bozak said.
With most of the November general election votes counted, Port Angeles’ $13.8 million bond issue to build a new aquatic center was losing 4,682 to reject to 2,391 to approve.
The Port Angeles facility would have been operated under a management contract with the adjacent Clallam County Family YMCA.
Port Angeles Mayor Karen Rogers has said the aquatic project is dead unless the public shows new support.
Forks’ Quillayute Valley Park and Recreation District levy election was sinking, 1,015 to reject it to 904 for approval.
The one-year, $250,000 property tax levy would have paid for at least two years’ worth of maintenance and operations for the Quillayute Valley Aquatic Center.
The pool at the corner of Division Street and Maple Avenue in Forks opened in July 2005.
It was closed on Sept. 7, two days earlier than planned for the routine fall break, because of a failure in the pool’s heating system.
The levy before voters in September and November was set at 98 cents per $1,000 of a home’s assessed value.
Donations, grant money and fund-raising efforts had kept the doors open and the pool filled until early September.