News

A “funeral” for a much-loved Berkeley swimming pool

December 15, 2011 2:00 pm by Guest contributor

Berkeley’s Warm Pool at the Old Gym on the Berkeley High campus filled with swimmers Wednesday night for probably the last time ever, as scores of pool loyalists gathered for a mock funeral. The Old Gym is being shuttered and is slated to be demolished in 2012. Above is a video shot last night, which includes some images taken of the pool in use on other days. It is by L.A. Wood. Robert Collier, Co-Chair of the Berkeley Pools Campaign, filed the report below:

After nearly three decades of being a lifeline for many disabled and elderly residents, the decrepit yet much-loved facility at Berkeley High School is closing forever.

Wednesday’s ceremony was a very Berkeley event: Rabbi Sara Shendelman played Tibetan bells and read prayers from several different world spiritual traditions. A symbolic coffin was carried alongside the pool, as participants held candles and mourned the loss of the Warm Pool as clouds of steam rose from the water.

Berkeley’s Warm Pool has been the center of an emotional debate for the past decade. Supporters say the 92-degree pool, the only municipal pool of its kind in the Bay Area, provides the only available and affordable form of exercise and therapy for many who are disabled and who cannot generate enough body heat for cooler pools.

After a regularly scheduled Berkeley City College class for the handicapped today, the pool will be mothballed for several months, with demolition scheduled for June.

The school district wants to occupy the Warm Pool space for much-needed expansion of athletic and classroom facilities on the overcrowded BHS campus. But the question – as it has been for more than a decade – is whether the City will build a replacement Warm Pool elsewhere.

A pools bond measure in the low-turnout June 2010 election, Measure C, received 62.2%, just shy of the two-thirds required. Pools supporters are asking the City Council for another chance in the much higher-turnout 2012 presidential election.

City staff have said the pools at the nearby Berkeley YMCA are an acceptable alternative, although the City’s Commission on Disability has said they are not suitable for many.

Hanging over the Warm Pool debate is a wild card — a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, in which Warm Pool swimmer Terry Cochrell is seeking an injunction to keep the pool open and operating until a replacement pool is provided. A ruling is expected later today.

Related:
More than $100m needed for parks, rec and waterfront [09.29.11]
Comment: Richmond Plunge holds lessons for Berkeley [08.18.10]
Comment: Voting on Measure C shows a split city [07.01.10]
Pools majority falls short [06.09.10]
A bigger splash: Save the pools [02.12.10]

16 Comments

Tagged , , ,
?
  • Anonymous

    Sometimes I read the news about what’s going on in Berkeley and I just think to myself, “really?”  
    This is one of those times.

  • http://twitter.com/SaraCsIt Sara Conrad

    That’s so sad. Warm water pools are awesome therapy. Floating weightless in warm water, no pressure on your aching joints, it’s heaven. 

  • Andrew

    Ah, now I know what is meant by a “warm” pool. I just thought it meant “heated”. It must require a lot of energy to keep a large pool of water at that temperature. Could solar panels handle that?

    I think the Richmond Plunge may be a “warm” pool (at the very least it’s a wonderful pool). If Richmond can do this then why not Berkeley?

  • Anonymous

    From the Daily Cal article on the closure of the pool:

    The YMCA also has two warm water pools — one shallow pool that ranges
    from 2.5 to 3.5 feet deep and is kept at 91 degrees Fahrenheit and
    another, Grace’s Pool, that is deeper but is kept at approximately 88
    degrees Fahrenheit.

    Apparently, there are some users who are concerned that 88 degrees won’t be sufficiently warm. I’d be interested if someone could find any information on how many users would actually be medically excluded by this four-degree difference.

    Either way, it seems exorbitant for Berkeley to spend $10 million on a new warm water pool at this time. ($10 million is based on a 2007 study that projected using 2009 dollars.) I’m not a pool expert, but it seems likely that for far less money, one could perform additional upgrades on the Y’s pool to allow that toasty 92 degrees. Also, it seems that proponents of pools aren’t doing themselves, the City, or the future of Berkeley’s pools any favors by filing frivolous lawsuits to keep open a seismically unsafe facility. It’s preposterous to suggest Berkeley is somehow discriminating against the disabled by ceasing to offer a service that few cities of Berkeley’s size have ever provided; especially since there are alternatives in place that will work for most people.

    I’m all for providing top-notch city services and facilities for the benefit of elderly, disabled, or otherwise under-served segments of the population, but it seems there are cheaper solutions that are adequate or very nearly so. If it’s truly that important to build a new facility for a pool kept at precisely 92 degrees, how about we get some neighboring communities to kick in and make the pool’s services available for people over a broader geographic area?

  • Bruce Love

    $10M?   It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? 

    Please consider a thought experiment.   Suppose that Mr. SmartyPantsRichGuy up in yonder hills decides to build a private warm pool.   Just for practical reasons, not to show off conspicuous consumption.   He’d actually like to do it frugally (that’s how he got the anme, SmartyPantsRichGuy).   How much under $10M do you think he can come in?

    The ballot initiative was deeply flawed by coming in at way more money that it should have needed.  I have a hard time seeing it as other than “built to fail”.

    But sure, let’s stick to talking about how old and/or disabled folks have a misplaced sense of entitlement.

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    But sure, let’s stick to talking about how old and/or disabled folks have a misplaced sense of entitlement.

    Flagged for thinly-veiled straw man attack.

  • Robert Collier

    Eric, you raise some legitimate questions. Here is a perhaps overly detailed response.

    Re: costs, the Warm Pool’s cost in last year’s Measure C was $9 million. After the election, pools users discovered that the City had inexplicably inflated Measure C’s costs with formulas for “soft costs” and contingencies that were much higher than the regional/industry standard or the formulas used by BUSD, the Albany pools and Berkeley libraries. Using those institutions’ formulas would have cut the Measure C cost from $22.5 million to about $16 million, of which the Warm Pool would be about $6.5 million. For our proposed bond measure in 2012, we are asking the City to use standard formulas and to refrain from using the bond measure as a cash cow for the General Fund. More details are here:
    http://www.berkeleypools.org/2011/09/pools-cash-cow-for-city.html

    Re: the YMCA, the City recently tried and failed to negotiate a deal for use of the YMCA pools by Warm Pool users. Reasons for the breakdown in negotiations with the YMCA have not been made public. We are asking the Council to send staff back to the YMCA to successfully negotiate a deal that, depending on the details, either could serve as a medium-term bridge until a new Warm Pool is built elsewhere, or could be a long-term solution.

    The City has resisted our entreaties to carry out a survey of the Warm Pool’s current and potential user base or to survey best practices at other successful Warm Pools. However, the Commission on Disability has explained why the YMCA’s current setup is not adequate for many disabled:
    http://berkeleypools.typepad.com/files/commission-on-disability.pdf

    Berkeley’s record as national leader on rights for the disabled is a proud one, and is hardly “preposterous.” Yes, we are different here in Berkeley. We provide a variety of social services and a quality of life for all that most other cities do not. That’s part of our DNA as a community.

    Re: regional funding for a Warm Pool, that’s an excellent idea but unfortunately a non-starter. In 2009, the City contacted neighboring cities to ask them to collaborate in a regional Warm Pool, but got no takers.

    More information is at the Berkeley Pools Campaign website, http://www.berkeleypools.org.

  • Bruce Love

    This would be the attack where I agree with Eric?

  • Julie

    No, the Plunge is probably only 83 degrees. I’ve heard it’s a wonderful pool, but without a wetsuit, I would be in severe pain swimming there. 

  • http://radar.oreilly.com/2007/09/local-recycle-reuse-hits-a-bur.html The Sharkey

    Correct.

  • Anonymous

    now this is something to protest about!

  • Tom Leimkuhler

    The memo from the Commission on Disabilities seems to be full of quibbles. Is 92º water really so different from 88º water? Maybe it is but I do wonder. If the larger YMCA pool really won’t work (even with negotiated adjustments to temperature, schedules, and subsidies) then I think warm pool users and supporters should rally for an East Bay-wide facility funded by three or more cities. The construction cost to each could be as low as a million or two. While you say it got no takers when floated in 2009, these sorts of things require lobbying. 
    I’m sympathetic to the group of warm pool users who want Berkeley to pay for a full-fledged replacement, but it is asking a lot of one city. If pool supporters bring a ballot measure to the voters in 2012 that isn’t materially different from Measure C, I’m pretty sure it will lose. And then we’ll have lost another two years in remaking the other city pools. A measure to renovate just those, leaving aside fancy water slides, would likely pass easily. 

  • BerkeleyCommonSense

    How can you sue over this? 

  • Charles_Siegel

    “Re: the YMCA, the City recently tried and failed to negotiate a deal for use of the YMCA pools by Warm Pool users.”

    Presumably, the city was trying to negotiate a group rate that would let all the users of the warm pool use the YMCA pool without paying for regular YMCA membership. 

    I wonder if it would possible for the city or for some non-profit organization to provide subsidies to people who 1) need to use a warm pool for medical reasons and 2) cannot afford YMCA membership. 

    Considering that over 60% of voters voted for the warm pool, it might be possible to organize a non-profit dedicated to the purpose and to raise enough private donations to pay for memberships for low-income warm-pool users.

    I don’t know the costs involved, but I hope the suggestion might be helpful.

  • Ari

    My son is in the Special Needs Aquatic Program (SNAP), which is a wonderful program staffed mostly by volunteers, serving children with disabilities, for whom swimming in warm water is one of the only safe ways for them to exercise & experience freedom of movement. Most of the classes have been at the Warm Pool, & some at the YMCA. As it is, the class times & openings have been extremely limited (& in the early evening, which is hard with elementary-aged kids who have to be up at 6 a.m.). Now that the Warm Pool is closed, the SNAP program is negotiating with the Y for more openings, & the proposed schedule at the Y is even tighter. As for Family Swim time at the Y, it doesn’t even start ’til evening & is on a lottery, so you never know if you’ll be able to swim if you show up. The loss of the Warm Pool is a blow. There’s no other comparable pool (& believe me, 91 degrees is only barely warm!) locally.

  • Lisaev

    ummm yes there is a difference and the medical literature supports it. That said, solar would help defray costs. disabled people would still need a lift/winch, but no slides, etc.
    bummer re the current pool, RIP. im withh u re a disabled measure for one warm pool. Really, how hard would tat be?