Letter: aquatic facility

Please start recognizing the efforts of the city employees of the aquatic facility for beginning to offer programs that will eventually utilize the facility's full potential.

Indeed, some problems have occurred during construction, but overall, those problems should not detract from the fact that it really is a wonderful aquatic facility, one that the Appeal should encourage folks in the Carson City area to visit and to use.

The Appeal needs to refocus its reporting on some of the broader aquatic facility issues that should be of interest to the general public, not on an "elite" pampered group of competitive age-group swimmers. After all, this is a public facility!

It is wonderful to see parents from throughout the community start to encourage their children to lessons at the pool. The children mingle with trepidation and tears as they enter the water, submerge themselves and blow bubbles, and then laugh and talk excitedly with new friends as they conquer those first swimming lesson challenges.

Those initial lessons not only provide basic water-safety instruction for all aspects of water-related activities, but also may lead to a life-long love of water recreation and water physical conditioning. For adults, there are opportunities for aquatic exercise lap swimming and an exercise room.

Even water polo is now available to those who are interested. When construction is complete, a warm-water therapy pool will also be available.

There is no other single public facility in Carson City that can accommodate children of all ages, where young and elderly can enjoy year-round such a wide range of physical activities. Greater recreational use of the facility should therefore be promoted, for that use will offset costs in future years.

Unfortunately, the aquatic facility seems to be considered by the Appeal and others as a personal fiefdom for certain folks who apparently believe that anyone who isn't an "elite" swimmer with the Carson Aquatic Club is somehow inferior.

Should the Appeal continue to ignore long-suffering users of the pool facilities or the fact that many very good area swimmers have actually commuted to Reno to avoid the problems and conflict that the Carson Aquatic Club has created over the years? I don't think so.

It is unfortunate too that the Appeal continues to refer to the aquatic facility as "the Carson Aquatic Club's pool." Doesn't the Appeal, its reporters and its editor understand who is paying for this facility? Or, have they forgotten that this is a public facility paid for through the "Quality of Life" funds?

The Appeal continues to focus on the use of the new aquatic facility as "one -of-a-kind" cash cow international training facility that will "draw competitive swimming meets from around the West" (Nevada Appeal Jan. 20) or that "... young, international swimmers - (will) become permanent fixtures in the water at the Carson Aquatic Club's pool." (Nevada Appeal Jan. 31.)

Should the Appeal ignore the fact that a competitive swim meet held last summer during the recent construction may have cost the city $30,000-$50,000 in delayed construction costs? Should the Appeal ignore the static that non-club members on Carson High School's swim team and Carson High's coach have put up with from the Carson Aquatic Club for the last eight or nine years?

Let's make sure that all Carson City residents from all stages and walks of life have the opportunity to fully utilize the aquatic facility. Let's integrate the facility into community activities. Let's not permit the facility to be used by a select few to the exclusion of the general public. And let's make sure that no one personally profits for its use.

GALEN DENIO

Carson City