Latest county pool plan makes waves

Yet another new plan for a pool was rolled out on Saturday morning at a special called work session of the Lumpkin County Board of Commissioners, with hopes that it’ll be the last new plan.
After a significant response, mostly from the competitive swimming community, at the board’s June meeting in opposition of the last pool plans, the county went back to the drawing board and came back with a possible solution. That plan was officially approved Tuesday night.
“I think this plan satisfies a lot of different things, from a recreational pool to competitive swimming for the Parks and Rec to additional basketball courts which are needed, pickleball courts which are in high demand right now,” board member Jeff Moran said at the work session. “It accomplishes a lot in one project.”
The major differences in the now $11.8 million plan is the accommodation of community members’ pleas to make the pool suitable for competition swimming, expanding from three lanes to eight lanes, which would in theory allow the pool to host swim tournaments at the Parks and Rec level. The new plan also allows for space to add a temporary enclosure or bubble to the pool in the winter months, as was suggested by the public, namely Lumpkin County Parks and Rec swim team head coach Leah Smith, at the last meeting.
“One of the reasons the architect switched things up was to accommodate the potential bubble for the pool. So what those Xs and that line around there represents the bubble,” County Manager Alan Ours explained while gesturing to blueprints. “One of the reasons he moved it, which I thought was a good idea, was that in the winter time if you have a bubble and the pool is there and it doesn’t connect with the building, then they don’t have access to the restrooms.”
The plan also offers the first look at the additional pickleball courts that were discussed with the previous plan, but not represented in the rendering. The plan would add six new outdoor pickleball courts as well as striping for four additional courts on the inside as an additional use of the basketball courts.

MAKING A SPLASH

While the Board of Commissioners greeted the plan with excitement during its work session Saturday, when members of the Board of Education first laid eyes on the plan during their own meeting on Monday night, tensions between the two boards in regards to the ongoing pool plan came to a head.
When asked if the length of the pool would fit the high school’s needs by school board member Lynn Sylvester and Superintendent Dr. Rob Brown shared his disappointment with the county’s new plan.
“Twenty-five yards is the competition length for high school and Rec swimming,” Brown said. “Of course our high school swim team competes and practices in the winter months, so an outdoor pool is not the most ideal circumstance for our kids.”
County Commissioner Bobby Mayfield, who is also an assistant principal at LCMS, was at the school board meeting and was given the floor when talks shifted to the potential bubble solution for the winter months. While explaining the updates to the plan regarding the implementation of the bubble, Mayfield remained vague on who would be footing the bill for such an enclosure. However, at the county session Saturday, BOC Chairman Chris Dockery and other commissioners made it clear that any plans to heat or enclose the pool would be the responsibility of the school system to provide.
“This is a family-oriented pool and if we can accommodate swim teams as part of it then so be it, but most of your Park and Rec competition swimming is in the summertime, so from the county’s perspective I don’t know that there’s really a requirement to heat a pool,” Dockery said. “If the school board wants to pay to heat the pool, same thing with the bubble, if they want to come up with ways to help us make it useful year round then I’d say we’ll be open to that, but recreational swimming I think is the focus and competition swimming in the summer time for Park and Rec.”
Commissioner Tucker Greene agreed.
“That’s what we’re tasked with providing. Anything above and beyond that is up to them and so if they decide not to and we don’t install a way to heat this pool when we first build it, that’s on them,” Greene said. “... I feel like we fought for what we have right here and the reason we fought for this was because of the kids in our county and what we can provide for them. Swim team for our county kids in Parks and Recreation is during the summer, so if the school is not willing to participate and partner up with us on this then let it be known.”
Dockery predicted that there may be a conflict when it comes to heating the pool as originally planned.
“So we had a 25-yard, three-lane pool that the school system had agreed to heat in the winter time,” he said. “I think the projected cost of that was around $47,000 annually. So then we go from a three-lane to an eight-lane, if you just do the math, you’re probably looking at $140,000 to heat that, I would assume…I guess what people need to understand is if the school system decides [it’s] not willing to spend $150,000 annually to heat the pool, then you’re going to have a pool that’s not heated.”

HEATED DEBATE

At Monday’s meeting, those tensions surfaced when Sylvester asked if the pool would be heated.
“My understanding is that there was an agreement between the Board of Commissioners and the Board of Education to heat the pool for the high school swim team,” Mayfield said.
Brown refuted that immediately, implying that the agreement was not for the larger pool.
“There was not an agreement of any sort for us to heat an eight-lane pool,” Brown said. “I think that might be a point of confusion.”
Lumpkin Schools Chief Operations Officer Greg Trammell said the issue would be looked into further between the two sides, but that the pool will be heated for the swim team in the winter.
“I spoke with the county manager today,” he said. “It is currently in their contract with Carroll Daniel to heat that pool, but if our swim team needs it for a month, we’ll figure out what that cost will be or what that rental fee will be, timer will be or what that will look like. That’s not been determined. The pool will be heated so that they can use it during the winter time.”
The plan was on agenda on Tuesday night’s BOC meeting and, for once, generated minimal discussion on the way to approval.
As for a timeline for the project, Ours said on Saturday that it’s still hard to say, but if the plan was approved, that they could expect to break ground sometime next spring.