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Fifty Years Later, Akron Residents Still Want Pools

[Shutterstock]
Black girl using a blue plastic float in a swimming pool.

Akron Mayor Dan Horrigan is doing an about face on plans for the city’s two outdoor pools. The mayor was thinking of closing them, due to their high maintenance costs, but a Community Needs Survey of residents’ attitudes about Akron’s parks and recreation facilities, released on Jan. 14, has changed that. It found pools and splash pads rated highly in importance across all demographics.  Now, the mayor is launching a five-year reinvestment plan for the pools at Reservoir Park and Perkins Woods.  And more aquatic features are in Akron’s future. ideastream "Morning Edition" host Amy Eddings spoke with Horrigan's chief of staff, Deputy Mayor James Hardy. 

Were you surprised by the findings?

I don't think we were surprised [that people liked and wanted aquatic features].  I think we were surprised to find how popular they were across every demographic in the community. 

Even though the importance of aquatics got a high rating across the board – black, white, young, old – the outdoor pools at Reservoir Park and Perkins Woods got less than stellar quality ratings.

Those two pools ironically were built as a result of the last time a city administration surveyed residents or worked with residents to identify what their recreation needs were, and that was the (then-Mayor John) Ballard Report that came as a result of the Wooster Road riots.  That was the late 1960s, early 1970s.  Those two facilities haven't seen significant upgrades since.  We've tried to keep, and we have kept, the pools themselves in good working condition.  But the bathrooms, the changing rooms, the aesthetics around the pools, have not been touched in a serious way since the early 70s.  And so I think the folks that utilize those pools or want to utilize them more want to see that level of investment and that's what the mayor has pledged to do in the next five years.

Are there plans for new pools or acquatic features?

In terms of responding to the water features that folks across the board were requesting, in 2019, in the current budget that's under consideration right now, we are looking at planning for two splash pads in South Akron and one in North Akron, considering that the two outdoor pools are in the eastern and western parts of the city. Splash parks or splash pads are less expensive to install, less expensive to maintain and don't require the same level of staffing that a pool does from a lifeguard perspective. We're going to be looking at those as alternatives to new pools.

Community events also rated highly.

People really loved the community events that Akron Recreation Bureau puts on, whether that's the Akron Arts Expo or Taste of Akron.  They want more of that.  We're going to pay for these things partly through a re-allocation of existing resources and partly through a prioritization in our overall budget.

This is the first survey of parks facilities since 1969, when then-Mayor John Ballard ordered a commission to look at city services in African American neighborhoods following six days of civil unrest.  What struck you in comparing that report, and this one?

They're so similar.  The importance of water facilities rated incredibly high in that survey back in 1969 and we find that, decades later, they're still number one in the hearts of the community.  And yet we still don't have a lot of water features across the city.  The other thing that I think struck us was, in 1969, there was obviously a lot of conversations about how to bridge the divide in between parts of the city, in particular African American neighborhoods and more white neighborhoods.  I think in some ways we still found that that was true.  And that's why we think community events rated so highly.  People want to meet their neighbors, still.  They still want to experience another part of the city in a way that they feel welcome and comfortable. Recreation through community events makes that possible. 

Both reports also revealed concern over the city's disinvestment in parks and recreational facilities in African American neighborhoods.  These two pools were built as a response to the Ballard Report's findings of disinvestment and, 50 years later, residents are complaining they're run down and out of date.  

The city, especially post-recession, has had incredible challenges.  It's well-documented the lack of state funding that we've experienced, the lack of federal funding.  We're still slowly coming back from the recession as it relates to income tax receipts and revenues.  But when you think about, at the end of the day, what cities are responsible for, I go back to Mayor Horrigan's state of the city address last year when he said unequivocally that recreation is an essential city service.  He used that phrase in announcing our intent to do this survey.  That is not a given in every community.  And we have to, as staff, operationalize that policy from the mayor which is that it is an essential city service.  It is as important as clearing the roads.  It's as important as public safety.  That was communicated in the Ballard Report and it was certainly communicated in this survey. 

 

 

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