Thanks for posting the photos. For the penny wise/pound foolish Berkeley cranks who campaigned against the measure, this mud is for you!

The closure of Willard Pool is a sad loss. I was the last swimmer out of the pool on its last day, June 30, and it was heartbreaking to think that Berkeley was amputating such a vibrant part of itself. Since 1964, when the pool opened, countless kids learned to swim there, and countless people from the immediate neighborhood and all across South Berkeley stayed healthy and enjoyed themselves. The Warm Pool (at Berkeley High) is also doomed, scheduled to close in late 2011 or early 2012. Measure C received “only” 62.2 percent voter approval, just shy of the two-thirds required. So close but so far! We expect to try again in the November 2012 election.

Ladypants, I have to disagree. The majority of the taxes we pay in Berkeley go directly to our City staff salaries, pensions and benefits. The ratio of expenses for employees to services is severely out of whack, and the voters shouldn’t have to keep on adding taxes to pay for existing services. The real problem is the City management, which has some hard, but necessary choices to make, not the voters.

Willard Pool had one of the most diverse clienteles I have seen, ethnically, agewise, and ability-wise. Its loss is a real shame. I’m an Oakland voter but we live so close to Berkeley that my daughter swam here a lot, often meeting friends for an invigorating playdate (kids) or a swim and chat (moms). We missed it greatly this past summer.

The Willard Pool isn’t the only one in Berkeley filled in. The UCB Strawberry East pool is also filled in. It was a beautiful pool in a beautiful setting. However, pools are very expensive per the number of users.

And the loss of one pool isn’t the disaster this article makes it sound like. There are other pools in Berkeley: University pools which are open to the public, city pools and at the Y.

Pool maintenance should never had gotten to the point where it had to be a bond measure. The bond measure lost because if was asking too much from the many for the very few. e.g.the hot water pool especially when there is a very nice one in Emeryville.

Can someone explain to me the point of filling the pool with mud? I’ve not seen that done before. Why not just leave it empty?

I can’t express how glad I am that I don’t live in Berkeley anymore. I grew up there, and I am deeply unhappy at how fouled up the city has become. It was a great place to grow up, but now I wouldn’t consider it even if I could afford it. This is just another sign that the place is doomed. I used to swim at that pool, as I lived about 100 steps from it. It makes me sick to see it filled with mud, just like the minds of the people who run the place.

Measure C failed because it tied simple pool maintenance to the incredibly expensive creation of new warm water pools and other new facilities.

If voters had been given a measure that would have allowed them to just keep the current pools open it would have passed.

Legislators need to learn to stop tying maintenance to expensive new construction. As long as they continue to do so measures like this one will continue to be defeated at the polls.

I believe the pool was filled with mud because in areas of high water table, the empty pool acts like a boat and can actually crack or float out of the ground. If left filled with water, it is an attractive nuisance and can lead to liability, accidents, and a big bug pond. The dirt can be easily removed when the time comes, with little or not damage. Hopefully they covered all the drain holes first.

This mud-filled pool is only one tiny indication of how dysfunctional and mismanaged our fair city is. Parks and Rec is a lovely example of how doing nothing gets rewarded in Berkeley. As long as our City Manager is able to make over $250,000/year, not have to deal with real public input, and retain the fear of those who report to him, then all is considered well at City Hall.

Berkeleyans continue to get mad at the Mayor and City Council members because we incorrectly think that they have been elected to represent us. The real power is on the City Manager side of 2180 Milvia, where all of the crappy budget decisions and political jockeying really happens. Oh, wait…I forgot that we are supposed to be grateful that our budget is “balanced.”

No wonder our City Council can spend time debating the merits of far-flung issues that have little bearing on the residents of the City. They have no real power. Who does have power? Oh, people like…you guessed it…the head of Parks and Rec, who has been told that he is “in line” for the job of City Manager some day.

Some salary info for you to consider: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/uploadedFiles/Human_Resources/Level_3_-__General/ClassificationAndSalaryListingByTitle.pdf

City Manager: $250,000
Deputy City Mgr: $202,000
Director of Parks & Rec: $200,000
Mayor: $0 (but it is approximated at $30,000 if he chose to draw a salary)

Not including benefits. So, when will we hold the ACTUAL people with power accountable?

When times get tight, the poor who are typically under-represented take the brunt of it. Let’s raise the rates on AC Transit busses and BART, reduce the schedules for those same transportation agencies, close the free parks and beaches, and now, let’s close the community pools.

Great work, Berkeley. Keep it up!

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see Measure I funds used to remove the mud from the Willard pool and renovate it. Those who actually read the Measure may recall that there are unspecified city/school/nonprofit joint projects that may be funded from the bond monies. Too bad Berkeleyside did not analyze this questionable clause in their “objective” analysis of Measure I.

I was a lifeguard for the City of Berkeley 1988 – 1993. I worked at all the pools. It was a great job and I taught swim lessons to children ages 3-12. It still is one of my favorite jobs. It’s a really sad that a community does not support something as vibrant and important as a public swimming pool. Sacrifice one of your half-caf soy mocha lattes and keep the pools open.

Alicia – Not voting to support public pools because you are pissed-off about city salaries and pensions doesn’t impact the city fiscal situation in the slightest – it’s just cranky. I agree that it stinks the city has over-comp’d employees but declining to support public pools is akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face – and won’t change the city compensation challenges. Public pools contribute to the city’s quality of life, particularly for families. If Berkeley continues to loose families, businesses will loose revenue and home values will continue to depreciate. The pools serve everyone in the city – I don’t really think the over-paid city manager gives a hoot one way or another if there is a pool or how the citizens of Berkeley vote – but our votes do impact quality of life, home values and the local economy. We need to invest in the city – and take up the compensation battle up as a distinct issue with out “muddying the waters” and diluting what Berkeley has to offer. If families move out, sales tax revenues go down and you’ll be subsidizing a whole lot more basic services tomorrow than you do today.

Ladypants, it was not just the public pools, but the addition of a new warm pool which was yoked with existing public pools which was the straw that I believe broke the camel’s back, so to speak. The citizens were ill served by the City Council agreeing to join with the warm pool advocates to fund the City’s *existing* pools along with a $22 Million construction bond for a warm pool. Why did they have to be tied together when they were completely different animals? The Berkeley public pools support a very large and diverse community of users and are already part of the infrastructure that the City *should* be maintaining with existing budget lines, i.e. Parks & Recreation whereas the number of users of the warm pool simply never justified the expense proposed. As to your conjecture that property values will decline, that of course remains to be seen, but, it currently appears to not be true. I don’t want to see Willard pool filled with mud. I just believe that the City made a choice long before the voters, to dump responsibility for Willard pool, and now they are choosing to “make a statement” by filling it with mud which I think ultimately makes more of a statement about the hearts and minds of the City employees than it does about the citizens who did not support Measure C because of the warm pool tie-in.

@Mitch: Of course we in Berkeley support public pools. That doesn’t mean we should support a poorly-written bond measure that tied pool maintenance and restoration to wildly expensive new construction. The measure was a huge, over-reaching mistake. Warm pools? I can’t even afford to keep my heat on all day, and you want me to pay for massively over-priced warm pool construction? I would happily have paid for a basic maintenance measure.

At any rate – the pool is filled in with mud because a big empty hole in the ground is a massive liability waiting to happen.

Thanks George for restating the obvious for anyone who reads the national press.
What galls me about those bashing the taxpayers push backs and demand for addressing the structural budgeting issues, is the suggestion that losing Willard is catastrophic. Tell that to families with chronic and extremely serious disease facing MediCal cutbacks with no safety nets or options whatsoever.

Talk about privileged denial. Us poor folks in south Berkeley have much more critical priorities than a pool.

And I love to swim.

And this is what will happen at King Pool if the long-deferred maintenance isn’t taken care of. The boiler is busted, the plumbing is shot, one leak was fixed but there are potentailly others. Come on, Berkeley! Fix the pools. Sheesh.

This is something that I would expect in the old Soviet Union. Suggestion: Pull your children out of these wretched and horrid failed public schools and take them elsewhere if at all possible, otherwise it’s all just babysitting vs. any healthy progressive and enlightened educational experience. If you have to leave town or the State to do that it may actually be even better long term.

So ….. because the pool got filled with mud as a safety precaution, that therefore the “wretched and horrid failed public schools” are “just babysitting vs. any healthy progressive and enlightened educational experience”? I get it that you want to leave town, as you have stated in various comments. Good luck in your future endeavors.

If — that small two letter word with the big meaning — we had a full, complete and comprehensive as well as systemic jobs program to lift so many people out of poverty not only during this great recession, but from this day forward, this pool as well as all of our shattered and crumbling infrastructure would be transformed & renewed and people at the bottom of the income tier would have money to spend as they always have. At present and for the future Obama has not fought for or championed this. He reads FDR’s books, however the words apparently do not sink in somehow. We could all change and turn this around here in the USA and heal this economy and society or what is left of it. My heart is truly broken as per the presidents lack of courage, *action*, leadership and vision. I now turn the audio down to zero when he or any other politician speaks on the radio. I did this for eight years when wya was the boy king. Now we are all fighting over the crumbs and with one another. No leadership, none. This is not going to end well.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/daniel-borenstein/ci_17038504?nclick_check=1

Daniel Borenstein: Berkeley benefit debt at least $310 million

Excerpt:

But a report by City Auditor Ann-Marie Hogan and new numbers from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System show that the city has an unfunded liability for promised employee benefits of $310 million.

That’s equal to more than two years of city general fund revenues. It works out to about $197,000 for every full-time city employee. Taxpayers must pay it off, at a cost of about $3,000 for every city resident.

The city has spent beyond its means, racking up huge debt that will be pushed onto future generations. They will be forced to choose between more taxes — in a city that’s already paying some of the highest — and fewer services.

There’s no money in the budget to keep public pools open, yet somehow they can find $20,000.00 per year to pay for sex changes for transgendered employees?

Hmmm……..