ENGLEWOOD — Before the Englewood School Board met Monday evening to decide the fate of the pool at Englewood High School, a member said he had to go out for coffee — which prompted a student to quip that he’d spring for two coffee machines if the group would vote to keep the facility.
The attempt at one of the oldest political tricks in the book — bribery — didn’t work. And the student group fighting to keep the almost 50-year-old pool got a hard lesson in civics when the board voted unanimously to remove it when the first phase of construction begins to create a new school for grades 7-12.
However, saying they were willing to work with the students and anyone else willing to come forward, the board offered a carrot: The board would set aside $1 million towards the construction of a new pool on campus, provided supporters could find partners willing to raise the rest of the money.
“You can call the U.S. Olympic Committee, you could call USA Swimming,” said board president Scott Gorsky. Former Olympic gold medalist “Amy Van Dyken lives right down the street; you can ask her, ‘Where’s your check?’ You can ask (current Olympic star) Michael Phelps, ‘Where’s your check?'”
The offer did little to mollify the feelings of the swim group, which had argued that the pool was a school icon. At one point, Scott Neff, a co-captain of the boys’ team, told the school board that while “you look at it as a money pit, the students see it as a point of pride.”
After the vote, Neff was visibly shaken.
“I still think it’s unfair,” he said. “Now I have to look the freshmen swimmers in the eye and tell them, ‘This is the only year you’re going to get to swim in this pool.'”
It was only last Wednesday that Neff’s group was told the pool was slated to be demolished. Immediately springing into action, more than 500 students signed a petition asking that it be saved.
On Monday, the group held an after-school rally that drew about three dozen students outside the pool to protest the decision. While the kids chanted, Neff and his team made a video to help present their case to the school board later in the evening.
But while the rally was going on, school officials were inside, conducting tests to determine whether issues like mold and bacteria would necessitate shutting things down immediately.
As part of the approximately $35 million in construction costs necessary to build the new campus, part of a mill levy bond that was passed by voters, Englewood Schools had designated $1 million to go towards upkeep for the pool. However, a later assessment showed that it would take at least three times that much just to begin to attack the problems, which included, among other things, adhering to to the Americans with Disabilities Act and repairing decaying wiring.
Even if the pool was fixed, according to school superintendent Brian Ewert, it would then cost $75,000 a year to maintain it — too great a price to pay for a facility that he said is currently being used by just 50 students a year.
“I could hire two teachers for that,” he said. “It’s not just putting paint on; once you spend $1 you have to spend the $3 million … no one wants this to happen, but I can’t justify telling the community that we lost 16,000 square feet of learning space and spent $3 million to keep a pool that’s being used by 50 people.”
The board said the $1 million could be set aside for as long as two years as the search for partners is conducted. The demolition of the current pool is tentatively scheduled for this summer; the new campus is scheduled to be completed before the 2014-15 school year.
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
