Garden City commissioners, city staff wonder about future of the Big Pool

The City of Garden City will look to the public for direction on preliminary decisions regarding the future of the Big Pool, as costly structural problems continue to weigh on the local landmark.

Assistant City Manager Jennifer Cunningham presented a report on the pool to the Garden City Commission Tuesday, outlining a summer that cost significantly more in labor with similar rates of sales.

Pool staff increased on all fronts, Cunningham said, causing the cost of labor at the pool to be over $82,000 more in 2018 than in 2017. Certain structural issues continue to be a problem, Cunningham said. Several factors, from uneven terrain causing water to flow out of the drains on the edge of the pool to persistent leaks, meant that the pool lost and had to pump in about 200,000 gallons of water a day, said Mike Muirhead, director of public utilities.

Muirhead said he and Sam Curran, director of public works, had helped the problem slightly last year by replacing concrete on the southeast corner of the deep end of the pool, but, regardless, the pool was still “leaking somewhere.”