Until just recently I haven’t been following the story about District 200’s decision to knock down its garage and build a fancy swimming pool to replace the old money pit pool. I don’t pretend to know the specifics, but sometimes maybe you don’t need to. So I’m either like Ben Carson on foreign policy or an idiot savant.
I must admit I don’t much like swimming. I suspect there are a number of reasons. My mother was terribly afraid of the water. Then the day in the summer when I was taking swimming lessons at the junior high pool, my class was cancelled because a fellow student drowned at the class immediately preceding mine. True story. Then there was the part where almost every time I would go swimming, the water was freezing and I couldn’t wear my glasses so I couldn’t see. I hated the experience. I felt like those blind fish that live in Mammoth Cave.
I do have some sympathy for the D200 school board. People forget that they are unpaid volunteers who are trying to help their community. It is often a thankless service. Of course, there is an egoism involved and you are much dependent on the professional administrators to help you make decisions, but you are trying to do the right thing. I’m just glad no one drew a picture of me in a swim suit when I was on District 97’s board.
So I’m guessing that, having figured out the achievement gap won’t be significantly closed for decades, the board decided to tackle a less ambitious legacy: build a new pool. There is surely a need for a nice new swimming complex in a town that has a renovated ice rink, a beautiful conservatory, a new library and two branch libraries. Lots of citizens would use an enhanced pool — kids, families, seniors and swim teams. Our community should have such a facility.
The problem here is: this pool at this place for this price. This paper reported that the pool’s total fiscal impact will be $54.5 million. Can that possibly be? Isn’t that more than it cost to build the Panama Canal or the Eiffel Tower?
Also, why does it have to be built where there is currently a garage that alleviates the terrible parking near the high school? If a pool is to be community resource, then the village, parks and rec, and D200 should pay for it in a better location that wouldn’t be so expensive. Obviously accommodation would have to be made. Maybe teaching teenagers to swim need not be part of the high school’s educational mission, and maybe walking or busing is in the future for the swim team. That’s the price to be paid for an old high school that simply doesn’t have the space to serve its constituent population. Deal with it.
The first thing you do when digging a useless hole is to stop digging. I appreciate that lots of smart people have worked on this for a long time, but the proposed solution just doesn’t seem right. There may be a better way than just circling the wagons.
Back to the drawing boards.
