PORT ANGELES — Though it doesn’t yet have a name, a group determined to save the William Shore Memorial Pool was formed at a meeting Friday night attended by more than 200 people.
The steering committee members on the new save-the-pool group are Dave Ashwell, Sara Barret-Brown, Nancy Hendricks, Dr. Ronald Bergman, Peter Ripley, Steve Trubow, Leslie Perrizo, Krista Winn, Tracey Moore, and Holly Juskevich.
Friday’s gathering, coordinated by pool staff and community members known as Friends of the Pool, was in the Vern Burton Community Center gym.
Three ways to save the pool were discussed.
They include forming partnerships with Peninsula College and the Coast Guard, which uses the pool for training rescue swimmers; raising donations; and forming a metropolitan parks district.
Forming a parks district received the most attention from the audience.
The City Council said at a Sept. 24 work session on the preliminary 2009 budget that the pool will close on Dec. 31 unless a firm plan is in place to fund pool operations.
The facility will close after March 31 if the plan doesn’t meet that goal.
Jayna Lafferty, aquatics manager, said Friends of the Pool cannot head the effort, since the group includes pool staff.
The new group is made up of seven committees, including the steering committee, which is charged with coming up with a short-term plan to keep the pool open until March 31 and a long-term plan to keep it funded and open beyond that date.
