LAKEPORT, Calif. – After meeting with state officials earlier in the day, on Thursday evening Lakeport Unified's maintenance director and superintendent presented to the district board the necessary next steps in the process to upgrade and reopen the Westshore Pool.
The board meeting room was packed with students, parents and local officials – including Lakeport City Council members Stacey Mattina and Martin Scheel, Lakeport City Manager Margaret Silveira, and Supervisor Anthony Farrington and Deputy County Administrator Alan Flora – who came to hear the pool discussion.
The pool normally would have been open by this time for the Channel Cats and the swim teams for Clear Lake and Kelseyville high schools to begin practice.
However, Lakeport Unified Superintendent Erin Smith-Hagberg discovered a December 2003 letter from the Division of the State Architect that raised issues about the pool's accessibility and structural safety.
Those issues weren’t addressed by the district’s leadership a decade ago, and the district – concerned about potential liability – has kept the pool closed while seeking more information from the state.
On Thursday four Division of the State Architect staffers met with representatives of the county, city and the Channel Cats to look over the pool, Smith-Hagberg said.
She thanked Farrington for taking the initiative to ask the Division of the State Architect for making the site visit. Smith-Hagberg and Dave Norris, the district’s director of maintenance, operations and transportation, previously had asked for a site visit and were denied, but a letter from Farrington apparently caused the agency to realize the pool is a community asset.
She said she thought it was a beneficial meeting, and raised everyone's understanding of the situation.
The meeting began, Smith-Hagberg said, with confirmation that the Division of the State Architect had not certified the pool – which was built by the county in 1973 – and, as a result, the district is in violation of the state education code, and board members are personally liable if any injuries occur.
The county was helpful in getting the pool's original plans to the Division of the State Architect on Monday, with the agency doing a “cursory review” of the plans followed by a quick visual inspection on Thursday, she said.
The Division of the State Architect offered the district options, including getting the pool certified, which is the only way students can begin to use it again. Smith-Hagberg said other options included having other entities take over the pool or assume liability.
Norris thanked Farrington for helping expedite the visit from the state. “That's incredible. This doesn't happen.”
Some of the concerns raised by Division of the State Architect staff included the pool's hillside location. Norris said the district was advised to hire a design team that includes geotechnical and structural engineers to collect data on the hillside and pool structure and come up with a plan to reinforce it.
The design teams finding and calculations would then be sent to the California Geological Survey and, if that agency agreed with the district's design team, the district could then pay $2,000 to open a permit with the Division of the State Architect, Norris said.
The division’s regional manager, Leroy Tam, who was among the state officials who visited on Thursday, said reinforcing the hillside could include boring holes in the ground and filling them with rebar and building a retaining wall. “He didn't think it was too involved,” said Norris.
Once the district submitted plans for addressing the pool's issues to the Division of the State Architect, there would be an eight-week waiting period before the agency began reviewing them. If they were approved, the district would then go out to bid, according to Norris.
Smith-Hagberg said the hillside stability needed to be explored before anything else was done. She said she and Norris recommended moving forward on that aspect.
In addition to the pool, Norris said the building at the pool also would need to be checked, with the walls bored into to check the rebar and the footing excavated. “Everything has to be verified, as if you are initially building it from the ground up.”
Norris and Smith-Hagberg didn't have definite cost estimates for some of the work, and the visiting state officials would not offer comment on potential costs, Norris said.
Agustin Merodio, coach of the Channel Cats as well as the Clear Lake and Kelseyville high school swim teams, said they were told during the visit that they could put in a portable, Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant bathroom, and that they don't need showers. They also could demolish the small building at the site, thus avoiding potentially high costs.
Farrington told the board that there was an offer on the table to help the district save money. Engineer Cliff Ruzicka, who designed the pool, is offering his services – including soil and structural analysis and all other steps in the process to upgrade the pool – for free.
“There's no downside to bringing him in,” Farrington added.
Farrington also suggested resurrecting a joint powers agreement that the county, city and school district had once had for operating the pool. “I think there's an opportunity for us to work together,” he said, adding that all he asked was for the school district to be willing to financially contribute to the pool's improvement.
Earlier this month the Board of Supervisors approved Farrington's request to allocate $15,000 toward getting the pool reopened, with the city of Lakeport agreeing to purchase a new pump after several years of shouldering most of the pool costs.
Clear Lake High Principal Steve Gentry, seated in the audience, said it was nice to see the Board of Supervisors getting involved once again after dumping the pool in the district's lap 12 years ago, with the city and the Channel Cats coming on later to help support the facility.
Farrington responded that it was his understanding that when the joint powers agreement was in force, the county carried the pool's responsibility for 20 years, with the city and district not pitching in. The county finally stepped away from the pool when the agreement reached its sunset.
He said he's trying to bring the county back to a joint powers agreement, but to get board support the school district needs to be willing to contribute.
Jennifer Hanson of the Channel Cats said the club has its own liability insurance, and she wanted to know if the swim team could use the pool in the summer if it assumes liability. Smith-Hagberg said the district's attorney indicated that was a possibility.
“Everybody here is supportive of getting the pool up and running as long as I don't have to give them my house to do it,” said Board member Dennis Darling.
Pointing out that the Division of the State Architect's representatives made a point of saying the board members are personally liable for the uncertified pool, Board member Wally Cox said he wanted to make sure everything is done right before the pool is reopened. “It's got to be ironclad or I'm not going to go for it.”
Silveira said the city is starting to look for summer lifeguards, and the city insurance carrier has told them that nothing has changed related to the city's liability. Smith-Hagberg said the district's attorney will want to talk to the city attorney about setting up an agreement for the city to run the pool this summer.
Smith-Hagberg also pointed out that the economic feasibility of upgrading the pool will come out in the state certification process.
The board hoped to have information from Ruzicka by the time of its meeting next month. Smith-Hagberg said the district also could hold a special meeting, depending on how fast Ruzicka can submit his initial findings.
Flora told Lake County News following the discussion that county officials came away from the meeting with the state believing that there actually are many options for getting the pool reopened, and county staff also is available to help with studying the facility's needed improvements.
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