LAWTON – A committee comprised of four City Council members was appointed Tuesday by Mayor Stan Booker to provide city staff with some guidance on plans for the city’s three wading pools. City staff recommended closing the 35th Division wading pool this summer but opening the pools at Mocine and Harmon parks. City staff also suggested either converting all three pools to “mini-splash pads” by next summer or tearing them out and replacing them with covered picnic areas.
In addition, new spray pads are proposed for Lee West Park and at East Side Park, complementing the one in Elmer Thomas Park near Lake Helen.
All three wading pools are “eyesores” and are “outdated or inoperable … and do not meet current codes,” said Jeffery Temple, the city’s Parks & Recreation director.
The pools are nearly a century old, are not ADA compliant, all three leaks and are “a lawsuit at the door waiting to knock,” Temple warned. They attract “an uncontrolled number” of young children playing in “shin-high” water with “no assurance that parents are on-site” and no lifeguards present.
Bringing the wading pools up to standard would cost an estimated $120,000 for the 35th Division Park, $80,000 for the Mocine Park pool, and $20,000 for the Harmon Park wading pool, although those figures were based on general estimates, not detailed studies, the council was told.
Not everyone wants to scrap the pools. “These pools are neighborhood issues,” said Ward 5 Councilman Allan Hampton, who has heard from several constituents who are fond of the facilities.
Booker appointed Keith Jackson of Ward 2; Linda Chapman, Ward 3; Onreka Johnson, Ward 7; and Hampton, Ward 5, to a “Council Committee” that will provide city staff with the council’s perspective on the wading pools issue.
The City Council wants to be consulted more frequently on matters such as the pools, and members of the Parks and Recreation Commission “need to be involved as much as possible,” Booker told the city staff.
Temple said $1.2 million remains in the 2015 Capital Improvements Program budget for splash pads and other recreation improvements.
A conventional splash pad would be more expensive if it includes filtering and recirculation equipment. Booker wondered whether it would be more cost-effective and efficient to install equipment that would recycle the water in the spray pads.
It would be “significantly less expensive” to let the water drain into the sanitary sewer system than to filter and recirculate it, Deputy City Manager Richard Rogalski said. However, Booker noted that water in the municipal swimming pool is recirculated. “And I still remember the drought” of just a few years ago, the mayor said.
The fate of the wading pools is one element of the master plan for Lawton’s recreation sites and facilities that Halff & Associates of Oklahoma City is performing under a $209,000 contract. The consultants and city staff are “still gathering information” for the master plan, which is expected to be finished “late this year,” the council was told Tuesday.
“We need to look at water fountains in the parks, even though I know they’re expensive,” Ward 8 Councilman Randy Warren said. He also said a splash pad in Lee West Park would be welcome but more parking area would be needed, preferably paved in asphalt.
Another issue that is expected to be addressed in the master plan is whether to sell some of Lawton’s municipal parks. The city has approximately 80 parks “but some of them are just lots,” Booker said. Research performed during the master plan study includes surveying public usage of the park and what amenities are being used.
Those parks have to be maintained year-round, which includes mowing in the summer months. Many Americans today want “green space,” but how much acreage is enough, Booker mused.