campus, which
residents could use.
The advocates of a pool in the park were not
mollified. Some didn’t want their children crossing Pico. Others
said they didn’t feel welcome on the campus. Still others said
college use of the new pools would crowd out residents. And,
inevitably, someone raised the question of parking, as the struggle
for parking between the college and its neighbors is long-running and
increasingly acrimonious.
All of which made us wonder why the City has chosen to
build a new municipal pool complex on the college campus, rather than
in some more central location to which all residents have easy access.
Or why the City, in concert with the School District, doesn’t build
new pools or rehab old ones on school campuses. In that way, the
students would have the use of the pools during the school day and
residents could swim in the late afternoons and early evenings.
Or, best of all, the City could invest its $6
million-plus in the rehab of the 415 Pacific Coast Highway property
now. It has a swimming pool which will eventually be repaired and
restored anyway. It’s a grand pool and it’s where it should be --
on the beach.
The benefits to the college of the new $6 million-plus
swimming pool complex on its campus are obvious, but the benefits to
residents are, at best, marginal. Parking is already a major problem,