Another summer bummer for St. Joseph
By NewsPress Now
Even in this era of iPhones and video games, summer days at the pool bring a universal appeal. Kids today aren’t that different from previous generations. They need a place to soak up the sun, get wet and test their courage on the big diving board.
Fortunately, there are plenty of modern water parks that provide the full range of slides, lazy rivers, diving boards and lap pools to fill those long summer days. Unfortunately for the children of St. Joseph, the full experience requires a drive to Chillicothe or Maryville. Even Wathena, Kansas, has more to offer in terms of swimming pool amenities.
St. Joseph heads into Memorial Day with its pools in a sad state and gets sadder when Krug Pool closes for good at the end of summer. Unless you’re a Gen Xer nostalgic for a more 1970s-era swimming experience, the pools here provide a distinct impression of St. Joseph as the little town that couldn’t.
For a fleeting moment, St. Joseph was close to fixing this situation and avoiding another summer bummer. The voter-approved half-cent parks tax included $7.7 million to fix structural issues that have forced the closure of the Aquatic Park’s lap pool in recent years, although the newer activity pool and lazy river remain open. The Aquatic Park hasn’t been fully open since before the pandemic.
The City Council, led by Mayor John Josendale, put the brakes on the Aquatic Pool fix because of concerns about spending large amounts on something that’s only open for three months. That’s a legitimate issue – the Aquatic Park was one of the last items added to the parks tax list for that reason. But, interestingly, the same concern never surfaces when the city spends money on Phil Welch Stadium or a Chief camp that runs for just three weeks in the summer.
Now the momentum has shifted toward an even pricier pool option, but one that stays open all year around. The council passed a resolution to contribute $7 million – the same amount that was set aside in the parks tax – to contribute to an indoor aquatic center at the St. Joseph YMCA campus.
City leaders might feel like they’ve solved the pool problem, but they should feel nervous about this leap into the unknown. The YMCA got out of the pool business a few years ago for a reason. Then the organization’s board, fresh off closing its Downtown facility, rejected a merger overture from the Kansas City YMCA.
Now the local YMCA wants to raise up to $9 million to build a facility that people couldn’t run from fast enough a few years ago. It sounds good on paper, but YMCA officials might want to check with the Friends of the Animal Shelter about what can happen when rising project costs exceed fundraising capacity.
This is a huge risk, especially considering that the city will one day have to go to voters and say, “Trust us. We’ll deliver what we promise.”
They’re promising something much grander than what voters supported back in 2021. It might pay off, but not in time to help those kids who wonder why their friends in Wathena seem to be having so much more fun at the pool this summer.
