PORT TOWNSEND — For Jeanie Glaspell and her children, the city’s pool is more than daily laps in 20 yards of water.
It’s an experience that she says has made a difference in her children’s lives.
That is in part why she and others who routinely use the pool — youngsters to seniors — are urging city leaders to save the aging pool should a proposed property tax levy fail in the Nov. 2 general election.
A petition and posters with more than 100 signatures will be presented to the City Council, said Annette Huenke, a Port Townsend pool user and resident for 12 years who was instrumental in gathering signatures and messages on posters from young swimmers.
“We have to start educating people because we can’t afford to lose the pool,” Huenke said Tuesday.
“I would like to educate the community that a pool is as important as a library.”
2,500 monthly
Some 2,500 swimmers use the pool each month, said Huenke.
City leaders warn that should voters reject the levy, which would “lift” the property tax rate from $1.94 per $1,000 of assessed valuation to $2.94 per $1,000, the pool’s funding stands to be cut by $135,000 of its 2004 budget total of $200,000.
Such a drastic budget reduction threatens the pool’s future.
“It would be devastating to our family,” Glaspell said Tuesday at the pool that was originally built by Jefferson County in the mid-1960s.
“It’s our life. It’s everything.”
The less than Olympic-size pool is housed on the Mountain View Elementary School campus, 1919 Blaine St.
It is a place where children for years have learned to swim and later practice for school competitions, adults have worked out and seniors have rehabilitated from hip surgery.