Potential pool layouts for the lot east of Whitson Elementary were presented to White Salmon Valley school board members Thursday. No motion was made in regards to the designs presented.
Mike Wellman and Brooks Heard, of Wellman Associates, and Dick Spies addressed the school board with their most recent update on the development of the White Salmon city pool, which was discussed during the last White Salmon City Council meeting in February.
Wellman’s intentions were to present the same information to the school board as was discussed at the city council meeting, although Wellman himself was not present for the update presented to the city.
“I also wanted to kind of just step back and look at the big picture here of what we’re doing,” explained Wellman. “Right now we’re still in this fact finding and getting opinions and input from the different stake holders in this process.”
Before diving in to the depths of the update, Wellman went over the timeline of the pool, stating the process would take “as long as it takes to get kind of a consensus.” The group is still gathering information from involved parties, added Wellman.
The pool development process, Wellman explained to school board members, began with meetings with involved parties such as the city administration, Pool Commit-tee, and School Board, in order to determine the scope of improvement for the selected site.
“We’re still actually in that meeting process,” said Wellman. “Then the next thing we would be doing is [a] submission of a proposed project to the stakeholders to gain comments, again this wouldn’t be written in concrete. Then [we] modify the project and move in to final design and layout with budgets,”
Wellman then elaborated on his meaning of “final design” by saying, “when I say final design that’s selecting a site, it’s not preparing working drawings and that type of thing, because this is still a feasibility study.”
A rough outline of the rest of the process, after a submission, entails selection of a site, conducting a hazard survey, looking in to parking issues, sidewalk design, utility design, swimming pool design, and other options within the swimming pool area (wading pool, therapy pool, diving board, for example).
“Then we would be looking at, when we get all of these together with budgets, we’d be looking at funding issues to see what this is going to cost, and what’s going to be involved to get that funded.”
Once the future of funding is demystified, there would be an updated recommendation process, “and a timeline for pool revenue development, potential increase of tax base, and then hopefully there would come, at some point, an authorization to design,” explained Wellman. “And then when the whole thing was done there would be a close out and a ribbon-cutting and the whole thing.”
The ribbon-cutting ceremony won’t happen for some time, warned Wellman. “We’re trying to keep it slow and careful because we’ve got multiple jurisdictions involved, we’ve got the public involved, we’ve got a lot of feelings about this, we’re trying to take all those into account, so that means we have to check, move ahead a little bit, get some feedback, and then do that again,” explained Wellman.
Before turning the briefing over to Heard, school board member Paul Mosbrucker asked Wellman about the $1.5 million budget set by the City of White Salmon during its last City Council meeting. Wellman said the city’s budget limit is a number taken from a previous report delivered to the city.
Heard then reviewed a few layout options for the proposed site, 4B, across from Whitson. “So if you break this down into three elements, program, site, and budget, it’s really a good way to look at what’s really become kind of an architectural project,” explained Heard.
The future pool is assumed to be a summer facility, with an extension of the current season by one to two months, Heard explained, although possible year-round enclosure could be planned for. As far as extras, “a therapy pool, splash pool, and rope swing are probably the most desired amenities,” Heard noted, but added such amenities may need to be phased in to accommodate the budget.
Funding for the pool was another topic touched on during the briefing. “It’s hard to provide stable funding,” Heard said. “Typical small community pools only average about 50% cost recovery. The resource of the remainder has yet to be determined.”
Heard then explained his statement used by the city to construct the announced budget. “Our optimistic projection of capital available for construction was $1.5 million, so somehow that got turned in to a construction budget,” said Heard. “This is the source of the misunderstanding.”
Spies then walked through a few pictorial renderings of potential pool layouts; various parking options were paired with the designs, but were pitched as rough ideas since the parking need hasn’t been studied.
School board members asked a few questions, but didn’t propose an action in regards to the briefing.
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