Toasty temperatures will continue this weekend, leading some San Diegans to seek shelter in cool swimming pools. But an unexpected shutdown has kept the popular Bud Kearns Pool in Balboa Park closed all summer.
The pool was originally supposed to be closed from February until the end of April for repairs.
Four months later, it’s still closed.
Now a voicemail at the pool's main phone number says it will open in mid-September. But an email update from the city's Parks and Recreation Department says before the pool can open, it will first need to be inspected by the county's health department between Sept. 15 and 17, and then will need another three weeks after that before it opens.
City Councilman Todd Gloria, whose district includes Balboa Park, said the delays are unacceptable.
"The good news is I believe we'll be able to reopen it in a few weeks time," Gloria said. "But the long-term permanent fixes that are necessary are still months, if not years, away. And I'm going to have to keep shaking the tin can at City Hall to make sure we get the dollars to actually do that."
Damage to the pool's main drain caused the shutdown, according to the Parks and Recreation Department. It will cost $149,000 to make those repairs.
The pool is then scheduled to be open until February 2016, when a second round of repairs could take place, but only if the city finds the necessary funding. Those repairs include "removing a perimeter curb around pool, restructuring the gutter system to re-circulate water, replacing wall inlets with bottom inlets and replacing the perimeter fence," according to the Parks and Recreation Department update.
"At this time the cost of Phase II and the associated funding has not been identified," it says.
The city estimates that 21,139 people visited Bud Kearns in 2014.
