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Council Sets Aside Funds To Renovate City Pools

The Wichita City Council approved funding Tuesday for two of the most heavily used municipal pools in Wichita. The pools must meet new ADA requirements.

College Hill pool on the east side of Wichita and Harvest on the west side will split $80,000 from the Capital Improvement Program to meet the new federal ADA standards. That's half of the funding, with the other 50 percent coming from the Department of Public Works and Utilities.

Addressing the Council, Doug Kupper, director of parks and recreation, said the College Hill pool has some requirements in place, like a zero-depth entry that allows wheelchair users to wheel into the pool.

"It is required to have an additional lift mechanism added to the pool," he said.

Harvest pool has no compliancy with the ADA and will have to have make more extensive renovations.

"The old standards were if we had at least one pool in the system, we were basically in compliance," he said.

"That no longer adheres to that rule so we will have to be establishing two points of entry to the Harvest pool going forward."

Kupper says the estimated cost of improving the other seven municipal pools in the future is about $60,000 per pool.

Council member Pete Mitzner reluctantly voted in favor of the funding. 

"With the added pressure of analyzing our water system on top of this, we need to really consider the impact of the burden that's being thrown at us," he said. "It's going be hard to justify water rates and water analysis when we're throwing gallons into things that cost us more to federal[ly] mandate."

Kupper says he will bring a master plan on the sustainability of Wichita's municipal pool system to the council soon.

Carla Eckels is Director of Organizational Culture at KMUW. She produces and hosts the R&B and gospel show Soulsations and brings stories of race and culture to The Range with the monthly segment In the Mix. Carla was inducted into The Kansas African American Museum's Trailblazers Hall of Fame in 2020 for her work in broadcast/journalism.