PORT ANGELES — Supporters of a plan to reopen Sequim’s public pool and recreation center cheered Tuesday when Clallam County commissioners awarded a grant to pay for a new air handler.
Commissioners voted 3-0 to approve the $731,705 expenditure after hearing overwhelming public support in a 90-minute hearing.
Nineteen speakers testified at the hearing. None who spoke opposed the grant.
“This room can be filled, and it’s very rarely filled with people with smiles on their face speaking in support,” board Chairman Mike Chapman said.
“Now the real work starts.”
Clallam County Parks and Recreation District 1, the junior taxing district that owns the shuttered Sequim Aquatic Recreation Center (SARC) at 610 N. Fifth Ave., plans to reopen the facility under the management of the Olympic Peninsula YMCA.
Money from the county’s Opportunity Fund will be used to replace the antiquated air handler with a more energy-efficient system.
The state-required air handler maintains air quality, humidity and safe balance of chemicals in the natatorium, or pool area.
“From an aquatics standpoint, it is probably the most important piece of equipment that you’ll have,” said Steve Burke, executive director of William Shore Memorial Pool and a Port of Port Angeles commissioner.
“Pools in general weren’t meant to be indoors. And so when we put them indoors, your air handling is everything.”
YMCA officials hope to open the pool this fall as the Sequim Y. The park district would be the landlord.
“We’ve seen leadership from many entities and organizations, and as far as I’m concerned, this is a real example of our community at its best,” said Commissioner Mark Ozias, whose district covers the Sequim-Dungeness Valley.
“I hope to see more examples of that over the course of time.”
Ozias thanked the Olympic Peninsula YMCA for stepping forward and the other partners who were behind the effort.
Those who testified included Parks and Recreation District 1 Acting Chair Sherry Nagel, Olympic Medical Center CEO Eric Lewis, Sequim School District Superintendent Gary Neal, Sequim City Councilwoman Candice Pratt, Olympic Peninsula YMCA Acting Director Len Borchers, two Sequim-area Realtors and four members of the Sequim High School girls swim team.
“Your engagement makes a big difference,” Commissioner Bill Peach told the audience. “I commend you for it.”
County commissioners had delayed action on the grant to analyze financing.
Doing so “allowed everyone to kind of not be rushed into spending these tax dollars,” Chapman told supporters of the Sequim recreation center.
The Opportunity Fund is a portion of state sales tax that supports public infrastructure in rural areas.
The Sequim center grant was discussed last Thursday by members of the Clallam County Finance Committee, which made no formal recommendation to commissioners.
“The numbers were all vetted,” Chapman said.
“I really commend Mark and Bill and the county leadership team with a process that allowed today to happen. There’s a right way and a wrong way, and clearly, in my opinion, this was the right way.”
Reopening the pool will provide four full-time jobs and about 40 part-time jobs for mainly high school students and young adults, Nagel said.
Several speakers said a functioning pool would help attract new residents to the area.
Since SARC closed Oct. 30, members of the Sequim High School boys and girls swim teams have been commuting to Port Angeles for practice and meets.
“SARC is a viable facility for our educational philosophy and mission and vision,” Neal said.
Chapman said he received 128 emails from people in favor of the pool grant, including elderly residents who relied on the pool for exercise and rehabilitation.
He received just one email from a person opposed to the grant.
“In my 15-plus years as a county commissioner, never before have I seen that many emails in favor of an issue,” Chapman said.
“There may have been a few times where I received that many opposed to something. So that was a first.”
Jan Richardson cast the lone no vote when SARC commissioners voted 4-1 to support a lease agreement with the Olympic Peninsula YMCA on March 9.
Richardson signed up to testify at Tuesday’s hearing but left the room before he was called to the podium.
“It was a forgone conclusion,” Richardson said in a Tuesday telephone interview.
“I’ve done as much as I can do, as one person.”
Richardson had raised repeated concerns over the economic viability of the YMCA running the pool. He also questioned the need to purchase a $700,000 air-handling unit when the original estimate was about $350,000.
“When the Y became part of the solution, we wanted to look beyond just the Band-Aid approach because the first approach wouldn’t have any energy savings component to it,” Burke said at the public hearing.
“It would have just fixed what was broken. But when the Y became part of the solution, we wanted to find something that would actually be better longer term and also that would have some energy efficiency.”
He added: “This will give the Y, I think, the best opportunity to succeed.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56450, or at rollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
Terry Ward, publisher of Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum, serves on the YMCA board of directors.
