Save The Pools

Everyone should get behind Oklahoma City Councilman Skip Kelly’s efforts to save some of the city’s swimming pools.

In Kelly’s words, “"Every child in the city should have an opportunity to learn to swim. A child can’t learn to swim from a spray park.”

The city has installed spraygrounds and closed some pools in recent years. The spraygrounds, according to a NewsOK.com story, are more popular than pools. Pools can be expensive and a hassle to maintain.

The city has two larger water parks and a few other traditional pools. One such pool at Douglas Park will reopen soon after repairs because of Kelly’s efforts, according to the story.

But the larger issue, as Kelly points out, is whether children and even adults have enough opportunities to learn how to swim given the city’s current setup.

This is vitally important. Those people who don’t know how to swim are sometimes afraid of water. This can then become a safety issue in their lives, and it can even endanger other people who might have to rescue them if they, say, fell into a lake or an ocean from a boat. Anyone at any age can learn how to swim.

Obviously, the city doesn’t have a responsibility to teach everyone to swim and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with spraygrounds, which are fun. But the city should create the “pool” infrastructure that promotes an important life skill while giving people a way to cool off in the long, hot Oklahoma summers. This only adds to the quality of life in Oklahoma City.