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Letter to the editor

City budget slash will close Bobby Hicks Pool for winter

By ELISABETH DYER
Published June 22, 2007

A casualty of tightened city budgets due to property tax cuts, Bobby Hicks Pool will once again close for the winter.

The slash is part of a $929, 025 cut to Tampa's Parks and Recreation budget, Linda Carlo, parks and recreation spokeswoman, said in an e-mail. Closing the Bobby Hicks Pool for the winter season will save the city about $46, 000 in heating costs.

For years, swimmers lobbied to keep the pool, next to Robinson High School, open year- round. They complained of crowding at the smaller Interbay Pool on W Estrella Street, especially after the Conn Natatorium pool on S Coolidge Avenue closed in July 2005.

On a trial basis, the city kept Bobby Hicks Pool open from November to March for the first time in two decades.

Officials anticipated natural gas to heat the pool - the city's only Olympic-sized - would cost $15, 000 to $16, 000 per month.

"Because of its size, Bobby Hicks is our most expensive pool to heat, " Carlo said.

But heating costs were less, totaling $46, 052 for the winter season. City officials also had ordered a $34, 000 insulated cover, which they canceled due to anticipated cuts.

Amie Devero, who launched a petition to keep the pool open two years ago, thinks property tax cuts are an excuse.

"Had the city bought the cover, heating costs would have been much less, " she said. "It's an appalling mismanagement of resources."

Devero, a triathlete, is one of an average 67 people who swam at the pool each day last winter.

She wishes the city charged fees to use pools, like St. Petersburg, which could be used to offset costs and thereby keep more pools open.

Instead, she expects to re-arrange her schedule to a low-traffic time at the Interbay Pool, which will be the city's only year-round heated pool in South Tampa.

Budget cuts will also close more city pools for the winter, including the Cuscaden Pool, an above-ground pool on 15th Street in the V.M. Ybor neighborhood, the Martin Luther King Jr. Pool on N Oregon Avenue, and the Spicola Family Pool on Stuart Street.

Four city pools will remain open year-round: Loretta Ingraham on Hubert Avenue, Sulphur Springs on Bird Street, Danny Del Rio on N Boulevard and Interbay on W Estrella.

The remaining 11 pools will close after Labor Day or in November.

Elisabeth Dyer can be reached at edyer@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3321.

[Last modified June 21, 2007, 07:33:45]