No pool means swim team can’t practice
No pool, no swim team — that’s the dilemma the city of Rexburg is dealing with.
“‘Mom, when can I swim again?'” said Machelle Littlefield, quoating what her daughter asked her the first day she found out her swim team’s indoor pool had closed.
Littlefield has struggled trying to get her kids involved in extracurricular activities. She’s tried basketball, gymnastics, even ballroom dancing, but they didn’t keep the interest of her kids. It wasn’t until signing up for the Rexburg swim team that her daughter began to like swimming.
“She’s a good swimmer and if she sticks with it, there will be a lot of opportunities to continue to compete in high school, and into college, and she can do it for years to come,” said Littlefield.
But that dream is slowly ending.
“And now that the pool is closing, that door is being closed to her unless we can figure out another way to keep going,” said Littlefield.
The city of Rexburg reached an agreement with Pinnacle Security company to use their indoor pool in their building. Pinnacle had no need for the pool, so it worked out perfectly for both the town and company. But two weeks ago, Pinnacle moved out of the building. and now the new company moving in isn’t too keen on letting the swim team use the pool.
“It was very fast. We heard the pool was being closed down and the next thing we know the doors are locked,” said Littlefield, “This affects 85 children in Rexburg. So there’s a significant impact of kids who discovered that they wanted to do this. And now they’re being told that they can’t.”
And now the question is where does the swim team go?
“We’ve got coaches who are looking, to hotels and apartments buildings trying to work with someone who will make their swim pool available to the swim team,” said Littlefield.
And that may be the way to keep the swim team alive in Rexburg.
“If it stops here, then it really stops,” said Littlefield.
We couldn’t find the name of the new owners moving into the old Pinnacle building. If the company would like to make a statement they can contact us with their side of the story.
