Santa Clara’s International Swim Center was closed indefinitely earlier this month for repairs, leading Santa Clara Swim Club to search for other pools to practice in.
On Tuesday, January 30th, the city of Santa Clara hosted a town hall meeting where the condition of the pool was discussed. Many people related to Santa Clara Swim Club were in attendance to find out why they showed up to the pool on Friday, January 12th where they were locked out of the facility, seeing signs outside of the facility saying the pool was closed “until further notice.”
The team’s website posted a graphic with information on the town hall meeting saying “Wear your SCSC team shirt.” See the full graphic below:
The town hall meeting brought some answers as to why the pool was closed. Local outlet KRON4 reported that 21 items at the pool are not up to code. These include the diving tower having settlement issues as well as the viewing area under the deep well showing “structural instability and deterioration.”
“We have kids training out of five and six different pools, all over the place, schedules challenging, they have homework, other activities and parents are working,” Santa Clara Swim Club (SCSC) head coach Kevin Zacher said to KRON4. The team was expected to meet with the city after Tuesday’s town hall meeting.
In the middle of July, SCSC broke three 13-14 National Age Group (NAG) relay records. The relays consisted of Aiden Zhou, Shareef Elaydi, Isabel Wu, and Alison Su. The team is also home to 2024 US Olympic Trials qualifier Mia Su who swam a 2:31.01 in the 200 breaststroke in July 2023.
Mia Su told KRON4, “I hope we get our pool back so I can swim at a pool closer to me.”
I thought Santa Clara Swim Club owned and operated the facility. If a municipality is involved, good luck.
While many cities are great in this regard, pools/costs are almost always a fight involving taxpayers. Local government / city councils seem to quake in their boots when some octogenarian strides to the microphone to shake their fist at them. “Doggone it, I’m not paying $3.25 more per month in taxes!!”
I’ve read about this every day since it’s been announced….opened this one today bc I wanted to read about the HEADLINE “21 Items Not Up To Code”…!!!…??? If that’s the title, can someone please report properly? Ugh. Click bait.
Maybe the hundreds of thousands of dollars John Bitter stole from the team could have helped here…
Sick burn.
What happened to the Bond voted on and passed in 2016 for capital improvements?
And all the talk of a new facility? I seem to remember the full support of Jed York…
Well, Mission Viejo about 2018 was almost as old and they did major renovation including the diving boards and platforms. In Mission Viejo the City Council usually supports the facilities of the swimming and diving team. They had to practice at different locations but there was a reason for it, until the faculties were really. Not certain if Santa Clara has a diving like Mission Viejo and needs the diving platforms and boards.
Smells like how Belmont plaza started to fade away…
ANYONE wantta bet that the ‘code violations’ all of a sudden become “infractions” that can be fixed while the team(s) keep using those facilities?
Diving strikes again
2 of 21 infractions…