More city-run pools ‘on track’ to be open this summer
After residents couldn’t access more than half of Boston’s city-run public pools last summer, officials say more aquatic facilities are “on track” to be open when the heat arrives this year.
But some city councilors are demanding more action from Boston Public Schools and Boston Centers for Youth and Families, and the Public Facilities Department, the agencies that oversee the city-run aquatic facilities.
And Councilor Ed Flynn is pointing his frustration toward the pool closure at the Condon Community Center on D Street in
South Boston through the summer.
“With the pool not open, what we’re seeing is people going to cookouts or going to a lake or a pool, and young people going swimming that don’t know how to swim,” Flynn said during a hearing last week. “That’s a major concern.”
Eddie McGuire, BCYF’s director of operations, connected that pool’s closure to a “variety of facility issues,” a predicament that other city-run pools are experiencing. With the pool not open this summer, Condon staffers will be moved to the nearby Walsh Center, while officials are looking to gain permits to use other spaces in addition, he said.
“It is an area of concern,” McGuire said. “We are working … to try to make sure kids feel comfortable enough to know they will have the ability to get to and from these locations safely, and we want them to participate in our programs.”
Due to renovations and deferred maintenance, officials had to close 10 of the 18 city-run public pools last summer, including all six pools in Mattapan and Dorchester.
But four of those shuttered pools, Clougherty in Charlestown, Draper in West Roxbury, Marshall in Dorchester, and Mattahunt in Mattapan, will be back online this summer, a city spokesperson told the Herald.
“Thanks to interagency collaboration … investments of City funding, and improved facilities assessment, the City is on track to have more pools open this year than in previous summers,” the spokesperson said.
Last year’s closures came as officials redoubled water safety and accessibility efforts around the city, including investments in free swimming lessons, free life jackets at open water locations and lifeguarding staffing efforts.
Roughly $34.3 million has budgeted over the next few years for pool repairs and renovations.
City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson is requesting improved communication from BCYF and BPS to families and community members around pool closures.
“I’m sure you can agree that it’s a really bad thing when a constituent shows up to the pool, they have to find out by getting there and all their kids are ready in bathing suits, ‘Nope, no swimming today,’” she said.