Our current indoor facility was built in 1937 as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project and serves our community well as an exercise facility. Our city’s population and tourism industry, however, has grown dramatically over the past decade and the current pool no longer meets the needs of our citizens. Children’s swim lessons are overcrowded, fill up immediately and the vast majority of the competitive pool is too deep for instructors to properly instruct students.
More exercise swimmers than ever are using the pool causing conflict between family swim time and lap swimming times. Over the past two years, the number of lap swimmers has dramatically increased. This increase conflicts with “open family swim” times and pool time allocations for swim team, exercise classes, and lap swimming has become difficult at best.
We believe that an outdoor pool complex would solve these needs as well as provide an outdoor water attraction which is very important to many folks. An outdoor soaking pool and recreational pool will be a huge attraction for community members and visitors alike and will be a valuable asset to the City of Salida.
The Salida Soak and Swim Committee proposes a public/private fundraising campaign to pay for the project, with public dollars coming from municipal funding and government grants and private funding from various foundations and community donations. Fundraising dollars would be given as tax deductible contributions to our fiscal agent, non-profit Salida – area Parks, Open Space & Trails (SPOT). www.salidaparksopenspacetrails.org