The Crookston Park Board toured the Crookston Community Pool Monday afternoon along with a couple of staff members and some of the pool’s users. Each member was presented with the budget that the Ways & Means Committee forwarded to the council for approval last week and there was a tour of the facilities.
Trish Erdman said she was very interested in the pool and has worked at the pool since it opened. She noted the entrance way needed to become more attractive, with more signage and lighting. “Going to start with the entrance and the attractiveness of the pool,” said Erdman. “I think we can all agree it needs a little enticement, more signage, and lighting. When I leave here at night, it is dark, and it’s not very well lit. All the lights are going off in the building, the doors have been open, anyone can come in at any time. It even needs to be more lit when the lifeguards that come in the morning. This parking lot is used a lot. There are a lot of people that buzzing through here, taking time and sitting or walking through here. It’s not very good when you have young lifeguards, old lifeguards or teachers leaving. It needs to be more protected that way to deter any unfortunate circumstance.”
Parks and Recreation Director Scott Riopelle said the city would like to give the entrance a facelift including additional lighting to make it safer and more appealing. “We’d like to give [the building] a little facelift,” said Riopelle. “The lighting in the parking lot is for the employees and the users to make it a little safer. It does get pretty dark we understand so we’d like to dress that up. With the face of the building in front, do some things as people walk in to make it more appealing. It’s a beautiful building, and we want it last awhile. The school has done a great job of it. Now it’s our time to put our little stamp on things I guess.”
In the locker rooms, the city would like to replace the showers which are currently centralized and have corrosion on the handles and shower heads. Each shower unit has four showers, and Riopelle estimated that they are roughly $3,000 each to replace, $5,000 if you include a handicap shower. There are four units (16 shower heads) in each locker room. Another possible option the city will explore would be moving the showers out of centralized location and having them wall mounted said, Riopelle. “We’re looking at different options for the showers,” said Riopelle. “A lot of the showers need some work, and it would be everybody’s best interest at this point for us to replace them. That’s one of the first things we’d like to do. We’ll have to talk to the plumbers to get some pricing from them. I’ve just done some pricing online so we can get ballpark figures. There are some other options like putting numerous ones on the walls as well, so we have enough showers for the users.”
Several additional upgrades were discussed including a new floor cleaning machine, repainting or replacing lockers down the road, making sure water fountains work, replacements of some doors and part of the ceiling that the humidity of the pool has eroded over time. Railings were also mentioned in the locker rooms and showers to keep people, especially seniors who use the pool heavily during water aerobics, from slipping. “As far as the railing we’d like to make it a little more accessible for people,” said Riopelle. “In the shower rooms we’d put some railings in and out of the locker rooms, and in and out of the showers, so if people are worried about slipping or whatever they can feel more secure.”
The board also looked at the budget for the rest of the calendar year and didn’t make any suggestions for changes to what staff had proposed. “That was presented to the council at the last Ways & Means meeting, but we also brought it to the Park Board here,” said Riopelle. “It’s for the next six months. We take over the pool on July 1, so we have to have a budget in place. We’ll have a full year budget coming out shortly for 2020. I’m not sure that it’s going to double what we see now. Right now we’re going on what we see the school has used in the past and then we utilize some of our operating items from other facilities for different items. Hopefully, we’re on base with those and in the ballpark.”
