Viewpoint: Athletic Park pool needs to be saved

By Dee Dubar, Anderson resident

June 13, 2009 07:54 pm

— Thank you for publishing the information on the non-opening of the Athletic Park Pool. I am very disappointed. I went to the Athletic Park on my days off with my kids and my nieces and nephews. I would have to be there by noon to make sure I got a chair. It was very busy there. And on the weekends, especially on Sunday, it was really busy. It is too bad that no one took notice how many local consumers used the Athletic Pool. In 2007, they put down the rubber floors throughout the downstairs area.
Why did they spend all of that money just to close it down? I would say most of the families that went there were from our inner city. This was a place you could go to with your children for a fee that was affordable and everyone would have a great time. It was a great place for single parents as well as two-parent households to take their children to and have a great family time.
The South Side Sports Complex Pool is too small. It is on the far south side of town where the Athletic Park pool is more centralized. This is a sad thing when the city of Anderson can’t find it in its budget to keep this pool going when it can spend thousands on flowers to beautify the city. I would rather my tax dollars go to giving the kids a great activity to do rather than give them flowers to look at. It’s about keeping kids playing together in a pool and keeping them off the streets where trouble can come their way.
Why take this away? I would like to see them reconsider their decision on the Athletic Pool and do away with something else. Raise the price some, do something. Please give our kids a place to go. And it is a historical place that generations go to and have gone to.
What will go next? Use the 1 percent food tax that was supposed to build our hotel. Instead it went for what? We are still paying that tax. What is that being used for? If someone would take notice to this, I am sure something could be done. Can anyone help save Anderson’s Athletic Pool?