Why is Ives Pool not open more hours for public swim in summer?

The folks who run the pool say that weather, budget priorities and regular programs limit public swim time — and they're OK with that

It’s summertime, and if you’ve got kids or grandkids, you’d probably like to spend time at Ives Pool, but then you find out about its limited hours. A reader wrote us wanting to know what’s up with that.

This issue with the pool has been bugging me for years. The only daytime pool hours for families or public is 12:45-2:45. Our city owns a pool and it is inaccessible. That seems terribly inequitable.

I don’t understand why families cannot even use the baby pool during the rest of the afternoon, or why the pool can’t be shared amongst various users. They will not even allow us to stay in the grassy area by the pool after 3. A real shame!

On a sunny Friday morning, adult swimmers for the Aqua Aerobics 2 program were in the water. The Sebastopol Times met with Ricardo Freitas, the longtime aquatics director, and Karen Weddle, who has been president for seven months of Western Sonoma County Swimmers, the nonprofit that runs Ives Pool.

Both Freitas and Weddle said that limited hours for public swim are due to weather, budget priorities, and the many programs that keep the pool busy.

Aqua Aerobics at Ives Pool. (Photo by Dale Dougherty)

The pool is in use from 6 am and until as late as 9 pm on some evenings. “We are one of the busiest pools in Sonoma County,” said Freitas. “And we offer recreation every day of the year.”

He went on to explain that Ives Pool is open on holidays and during spring break, when some of the other pools in the county are closed. He also emphasized the importance of offering swim lessons for kids. “Our main concern is for children to be water-safe.”

The hours for parents to come and just hang out with kids at the pool are limited. On a summer day, like last Friday, when the sun is out, a family that wants to head out to the pool will find that they have only a two-hour window in the early afternoon.

“Basically, we have 14 hours of public swim a week during the summer,” said Freitas. “There’s also 4-6 hours a week of family swim in the small pool.” Aqua Aerobics has 9 morning sessions a week that total 9 hours. Lap swimmers have 22 sessions, totaling 41 hours a week, although one session each day uses only three lanes of the pool and overlaps with times for public swim at 12:45 pm. Water polo and underwater hockey sessions are in the early evening.

“We offer a real variety of programming that takes up pretty much every hour of the day,” said Weddle, mentioning that the Aqua Aerobic class happening then was the second class of the day. She added that lap swimming is in high demand. “I think the schedule has worked for us, as far as being able to provide all these programs and these activities to people,” she said. These programmatic uses of the pool are a reliable source of revenue for the organization and are critical to maintaining the pool.

Freitas comes back to the weather in Sebastopol as the reason behind the limited hours. “All June, it was foggy in the morning, and we didn’t have anybody here,” he said.

He is resistant to the idea of changes to the pool’s schedule. “We cannot change times on the pool,” he said.

When asked if the pool was inaccessible to families, Weddle responded: “(The pool) may be inaccessible to that family for those particular times”—referring to the reader who wrote to the Sebastopol Times about this issue— “but it is accessible, but not necessarily fitting into everyone else’s schedule.”

Later that afternoon, there was a good showing of people for public swim.

Public Swim at Ives Pool. (Photo by Dale Dougherty)

The reader who wrote to us originally went to Ives Pool that afternoon and told us: “$24 for 2 swimmers and 2 non-swimmers for less than 2 hours of pool use. All the kids here will be bummed to be thrown out at 2:45 pm.”

Here’s an odd thing: if you look at the Ives Pool schedule, there is nothing on the schedule after public swim for nearly four hours — until 6:30 pm. This would be a prime time for family use that doesn’t conflict with lap swimming or aqua aerobics, but the pool is not open to the public then. Doesn’t that offer them the flexibility to expand the number of hours for public swim?

Sebastopol Times wrote to Karen Weddle and asked about this block of time on the schedule. She replied: “The Sebastopol Sea Serpents are contracted with Western Sonoma County Swimmers to conduct their swim program and practices during the 3:00-6:30 p.m. time slot.” A separate nonprofit, The Sebastopol Sea Serpents operates year-round, and its participants pay monthly fees that range from $110 to $190 per month. Some portion goes to Ives Pool for pool use, but it also pays for a coaching staff.

Ives Pool has operated this way for many, many years. The group programs that keep the pool busy are well-organized and continue to serve many people. They predictably contribute to the budget that allows the pool to operate. However, Ives Pool’s schedule is not as flexible as it might be to accommodate families who want to spend more time at the pool during the summer.

If families want to argue for more time on the schedule, they can show up at Western Sonoma County Swimmers board meetings, which are held on the third Monday of the month. You can write to the board of Ives Pool at information@ivespool.org and learn more about upcoming board meetings.

You can also reach out to the Sebastopol City Council. Although the council has traditionally been hands-off when it comes to the running of the pool, Ives Pool is city property, and councilmembers could have considerable sway if they took an interest in this issue.