Is Santa Rosa Junior College’s new Olympic pool big enough for everyone?

With the first Olympic-size pool between Petaluma and the Oregon border, the June opening of Santa Rosa Junior College’s new swim facility made a big splash.

But in the months since its opening, confusion and concern over who has access to it has led some community members to write The Press Democrat with questions about the facility and its operation.

At the dedication event, head coach of Santa Rosa Junior College’s swim and dive teams Jill McCormick said: “This pool is not only for SRJC athletics and our college...It is for our entire community.”

Which members of the community have access and how students fit in is where some of the tension now lies.

Not enough pools

The $4.3 million build-out of the college’s aquatic center was made possible by Measure H, a major $410 million bond measure approved by voters in 2014 to upgrade Santa Rosa Junior College facilities, improve student offerings and address overcrowding.

While the pool wasn’t designed to serve the general public per se, McCormick noted, “Santa Rosa and Sonoma County do not have enough pools for the amount of people that live here, so that's a major problem.”

Given that, Santa Rosa Junior College, like many other California colleges and universities, has long granted access to the outside public through programming and long-term rentals at its two pools, an indoor and outdoor one. The latter has now been replaced with the new 50-meter upgrade.

Indeed, Santa Rosa has already leaned on the school to absorb some aquatic programming as the city plans to temporarily close one of its two public pools, Finley Aquatic Center, for construction that is expected to last until next summer.

The City’s web page on the construction project also tells community members concerned about displaced access that “swimmers may consider options available at other local community pools, such as the new Olympic-sized pool at Santa Rosa Junior College.”

The Santa Rosa Junior College itself currently has no public-facing information explicitly detailing how students and members of the public can access the pool. McCormick acknowledged, “It’s obvious now that we really, really have a need for that.”

But, aspiring swimmers have a few options.

Health and wellness

This fall, there are a number of classes available through the Kinesiology Department, costing $46 to $69 per semester. There also are two community education classes this term. These classes generally range from from $90 to $200 for the semester.

Notably, only one of the Kinesiology Department classes and one of the community classes is in the outdoor Olympic pool.

Joubin Afshar, a Santa Rosa Junior College student, said he was excited about the new pool. “I thought, ‘Oh, there’s going to be this great outdoor pool, and it’s going to be so nice, and I can take classes there.’”

He was disappointed when he realized the class he signed up for was in the smaller, shallower indoor pool. He was even more bothered when he found out how much time the outdoor pool is rented out to outside groups.

Between Cardinal Newman High School’s water polo team and the Neptunes, a competitive club swim team, the Olympic pool is booked 3-8:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 3-6:30 p.m. Friday.

The Neptunes also get a daily chunk at the indoor pool. Another 2.5 hours per day at the outdoor pool goes to Santa Rosa Masters, a local adult swimming program.

The Neptune Swim Team and Santa Rosa Masters are open to various ages and all levels. However, the former is full up and the latter costs $75 per month, though there’s a $7 drop-in option.

Afshar said he didn’t think he should have to pay to join an outside organization to get good access to his school’s new expensive taxpayer-funded pool.

“If our taxes are being used for something they should be used for those purposes,” he said.

This also concerned Denise Couey, who previously attended Santa Rosa Junior College. Over the years, she’s experienced firsthand how difficult it can be to find affordable and available swimming options.

“SRJC students should always have priority. Second to the students, is the community,” Couey wrote in an email to The Press Democrat, worried about a potential monopolization of the pool by a select few.

Olympic-size roadblocks

McCormick laid out a number of factors at play.

Some classes and activities need the deeper pool outside while others are better suited for inside, she said. The pool schedules, too, will change drastically depending on the time of year. The junior college’s swim teams, for instance, train much more in the spring.

When it comes to other groups’ use of the pools, she noted Santa Rosa Junior College’s longstanding relationships with various local high school swimming, diving and water polo teams who use the pools at different times of the year.

She and Jeff Tibbetts, a recreation supervisor with Santa Rosa, noted that time allotted to the Neptunes at Santa Rosa’s second public pool, Ridgway Swim Center, was moved to the junior college to free up Ridgway for general public lap swim, for example, while Finley is shuttered.

Even so, “we're not up against maxed-out pool space and time and availability,” McCormick said. “We’re up against budget.”

Funded, as the school is, per student and not per class or another metric, declining enrollment has limited the budget and the resources available to provide extra classes, which require certified instructors and lifeguards on deck.

Another road block is the shortage of lifeguards.

“We need guards desperately,” McCormick said. In fact, planning for one additional class that could have run this fall was derailed in part because no lifeguard was available.

Still, she pointed to the facility’s “slammed” schedule as one reason they likely won’t go the route of recreational swim day passes like at some other schools with pools, such as College of Marin.

Staff is planning, though, to expand programming in the spring and fall that provide more flexibility to students and others who want to use the facilities.

That could include an open lap swim course, an open gym credit class that pairs some online work with access to the pool, and a free non-credit program that are all at various stages of development.

McCormick recognized the “growing pains” as they’re bringing the new pool online.

“This is our first semester programming both pools,“ she said. “We can only offer what our current budget and man power will allow, but we are being creative and innovative on ways to more effectively use and develop future programs which will continue to increase access to our students and our community.”

“In Your Corner” is a new column that puts watchdog reporting to work for the community. If you have a concern, a tip, or a hunch, you can reach “In Your Corner” Columnist Marisa Endicott at 707-521-5470 or marisa.endicott@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @InYourCornerTPD and Facebook @InYourCornerTPD.