During a meeting at the Centralia Community Pool at Thorbeckes on Tuesday afternoon, about a dozen members of the public gathered to discuss how they should organize to prevent the Centralia School District from transferring pool ownership to the City of Centralia following a failed levy.
During the meeting, those in attendance discussed the pool’s history and their plans to advocate for the pool.
Neal Kirby, a former principal at Edison Elementary and Centralia Middle School as well as a former member of the Centralia School Board, organized the meeting.
“The pool was built first and foremost for students,” said Kirby, who regularly exercises in the pool to train for mountain climbing.
Kirby told those attending the meeting when the pool was first constructed people were afraid to put the pool on a high school bond because they were concerned it would make the whole bond fail. When the bond was passed in the 1970s, the original idea for the pool was to give children priority in pool usage and, when they weren’t using the pool, the community would be able to.
According to Kirby, the pool’s operations are governed by a contract between the school district, city and Thorbeckes. Kirby said under the contract, when there’s a major issue with the pool, Thorbeckes is responsible for paying an initial cost up to a certain amount, after which the remaining cost is split between the school district and the city. The contract also permits the school district to transfer ownership of the pool to the city if there were a double levy failure, as recently occurred.
One issue the district potentially faces with keeping the pool is covering major costs Kirby said are coming up. According to Kirby, on Tuesday morning he spoke to Centralia Superintendent Lisa Grant, who told him the pool’s roof will soon have to be replaced. Kirby told the meeting attendees Grant said the district is considering giving up ownership of the pool, but no decision had been made. Kirby also said he reached out to the school district and Thorbeckes about sending representatives to the meeting on Tuesday afternoon, but both declined.
Kirby wrote to Grant and Centralia School Board Chair Tim Browning about the importance of the pool to the community.
“I’m concerned for all the senior citizens who use the pool for their main exercise. Due to buoyancy, and many of the seniors who use the pool have joint issues and other medical issues, the pool is for many their only option for exercise,” Kirby wrote in a letter, later noting senior citizens are an influential voting block.
Kirby also said the recent failure of two school levies shouldn’t impact the pool, arguing there was a promise the school district would operate and maintain the pool after it was built following the passage of a bond.
“That agreement to operate and maintain the pool wasn’t contingent on the passage of further funding measures. The citizens kept up their side of the agreement by passing the bond. That bond and the pool have been paid off by the citizens of Centralia. We paid for it, we should have it available as before without cuts. The school district should keep their side of the bargain it had with the community when passing the bond,” Kirby said. “We paid for it on the promise we could use (the pool) when students were not. Let’s keep it that way.”
In responding to Kirby’s email, Grant said decisions are still being made.
“The district values the pool for the benefits to both our students and our community. None of these decisions are easy or simple. No decisions have been made yet,” Grant said.
During the meeting, Kirby encouraged individuals to write to board members “from the heart,” which he said could be more impactful than a petition. After Kirby made the suggestion to write individually, meeting attendees discussed their experiences with the pool. One man who was at the meeting said he had been to the pool when movies were being shown and was impressed by the number of people using the facilities. He said the pool had been so crowded he couldn’t even hear the movie over the people talking. Another person attending the meeting said the pool provides students with what she said was a great first job experience. She added students learn important skills, which some of the students have later used to save lives.
In an email sent after the meeting to attendees and other supporters of the pool, Kirby told recipients about the meeting earlier in the day and his recommendations for how to advocate for the pool.
“Sharing what the pool means to you personally is a good start. Other issues you might share is the importance of maintaining services as they are, opposition to the district backing out of the contract with Thorebeckes and the City of Centralia and the importance of the pool to the students of the Centralia School District,” Kirby said.
Kirby ended his email by telling recipients he hoped to see them at the Centralia School Board meeting on Wednesday night.
