Editorial: McKinley Park pool deserves support

It may not be the most fitting analogy to use, but consider the pawns in a game of chess to the McKinley Park Aquatic Center proposed renovation.

For those of you who play chess, you know what pawns are all about. Each player has eight of them and their only purpose is to protect the royalty in the back row for as long as possible. Being the weakest piece on the table, it doesn’t take much or long for pawns to be knocked off the board.

A city-owned and operated swimming pool may be the pawns in city government. As been stated in public meetings, city-owned pools do not make money. Pools are financially weak. It’s likely they lose money because the expenses to operate and staff a pool far outweigh the cost of admission for a group of middle school friends for a hot, summer afternoon.

But to make that math balance, it’s highly unlikely that some group of middle school kids could afford to go, let alone their parents having that amount of cash stuffed in their pocket.

But the pool can’t only be looked at as an expense and revenue project. It’s part of adding to the quality of life for a town and its residents. It’s a place where those pre-teen kids can go. It’s a place where younger kids can learn how to swim; a lifelong skill. The better the pool, the more it can be sold to the area attracting others to town. That argument has been used against Creston as those in support of MPAC say they know families who swim at Corning or Winterset.

In the 2000s, Colby, Kansas, a town smaller than Creston on the western plains of the state, passed a sales tax to fund a new outdoor swimming pool. With the help of pool architects, the new pool has its traditional swimming area and an adjacent lazy river and slides. The new pool replaced one that went back to the 1940s.

The pool was a big hit for the Colby people who agreed to pay for the additional taxl. The facility also did what Corning and Winterset do to Creston; it attracted many from other area towns since no other town has a pool like Colby.

We understand the city of Creston has other public needs, but we hope city council and others can find a way to finance improvements at the McKinley Park pool. Because we don’t want others to think Creston is just another pawn on the map of Iowa.