SPOKANE, Wash. — The City of Spokane's Parks and Recreation Department is planning to reopen pools again this summer after the COVID-19 pandemic kept them closed in 2020.
Crews have started working to prepare the pools, like the Comstock Park Pool, for opening this summer, including power washing and repairing damage caused by this year's windstorms.
"This year, we really want to bring back the aquatic centers to the community and have it be a core service for the City of Spokane Parks and Recreation," Spokane Parks and Recreation Director Garrett Jones said.
Jones said this will also help the city provide important programs such as swimming lessons to kids in the community, something that was hard, if not impossible, to do last summer.
While there has been some concern of Spokane County being moved back to Phase 2 of Governor Jay Inslee's reopening plan, Jones said the city can still reopen aquatic centers in the case of a setback.
"Under the phase two guidelines we would be at a capacity of 50 participants and swimmers per Aquatic Center," Jones said.
Even though they would still be able to reopen, Jones added that it would be largely beneficial to operate under Phase 3 guidelines.
"Phase three, we can up that [capacity] to 50%, which is a huge boost, and we'd be able to increase those operations across all aquatic centers," Jones said.
Inslee's office announced on Friday that counties would be moved back if they were failing both metrics, not just one like originally planned. The metrics are a county's case rate over two weeks and hospitalization rate over one week. As of April 9, Spokane County is failing to satisfy the hospitalization rate metric, but is meeting the goal for new case rate.
Some things will look different when pools reopen this summer, Jones said. State guidelines dictate that aquatic centers and pools must try to ensure social distancing for patrons not from the same household, including on the decks, in locker rooms and in the water. This could include the rearranging or removal of deck chairs and tables.
Face coverings are also required by the state when patrons aren't outdoors, swimming or using equipment such as water slides.
Jones said working with the guidelines hasn't been much of an issue.
"No, not really," he said. "I mean, it comes with our partnerships and communication, which has been great with the regional health district and our state officials. Our staff has done a great job of drafting protocols [and] getting the feedback. And for us, it's going to be communication and messaging for the community, so we're working on that right now, of just going out there and saying, 'Hey this is what's going to look a little different'."
While pools and aquatic centers are planned to reopen, the city said that its 17 splash pads are currently not a part of the plan. That's because current state guidelines make it so splash pads would have to have an attendant at all times of operations, and Spokane Parks and Recreation wants to focus on staffing pools and aquatic centers.