City Considers Closing Pool for Winter Season

The lap pool at the New Port Richey Recreation and Aquatic Center could be shut down for five months out of the year to all but members of a youth swim team under a proposed change in operations.

New Port Richey Parks and Recreation director Elaine Smith presented the council Tuesday July 23 with information on the impact of closing the pool from November through March, starting this year. New Port Richey City Council members said that they wanted to explore the idea of closing the pools in the winter and negotiate with the swim team that uses the facility to keep it open for that team.

City Parks and Recreation Director  Elaine Smith she is willing to keep it open to swimmers in the New Port Richey branch of the Tampa Bay Aquatics (TBay) swim team so long as the team continues paying rent in those months and also pays to heat the pool.

The pool records extremely low attendance in the winter months, according to numbers from Smith. The average number of swimmers using the pool simultaneously almost never rose into the double digits this past winter during the months the pool would be closed for under the proposal , except when a swim team was training.

The closure could save the rec center in heating and staff costs. The cost of heating the pool over the five months amounts to $5,000. The staff costs total $24,366.
 
Last year, TBay parents and swimmers raised an outcry when the City Council pondered closing the pool for several months. The Council decided not to but ended up entering negotiations to charge the team to rent the pool.

Smith said the city might be able to work out a deal with TBay where the city subsidized part of the team’s costs of heating the pool in exchange for the team opening up at least one lane for free swimmers.

New Port Richey City Council members said July 23 that they wanted to explore the idea of closing the pools in the winter and negotiate with TBay. Smith said the next day that she had contacted the team and was going to meet with them next week.

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