Reston Association’s Parks and Recreation Planning Committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend that Tall Oaks pool be kept open.
But moments later the committee split 4-4 on a vote to keep the community pool open in Shadowood, a lower-income, working class neighborhood.
Vicky Wingert, a committee member who missed the meeting, will hold the tie-breaker assuming other members have made up their minds.
“I think the committee was responsive to the tidal wave of support for Tall Oaks pool that they saw from the community,” said Deborah Shprentz, who quickly formed Save Tall Oaks Pool (STOP) last summer when a consulting group released a report recommending the pool’s closure. The group has also opposed the closure of any of Reston’s 15 community pools.
SHADOWOOD RESIDENTS at the meeting were dismayed that their support for their local pool didn’t mean as much as the support shown by their neighbors to the north.
“I’m not going as far to say it’s because of demographics, but there is a feeling that the [Shadowood] neighborhood doesn’t get the same level of services as other parts of Reston,” said Rod Newhouse, a board member of the Shadowood Condo Association who attended the meeting. “I’m disappointed.”
Newhouse, 32, who lives in Shadowood with his wife, tried to explain to the committee that the demographics of the surrounding neighborhood makes it harder to show support in “sheer numbers.” Newhouse said he and several others in the community will continue their fight to save their neighborhood pool. “We’re going to hunker down.”
If the pool were closed, the association would be required to convert it into another amenity, like a playground or basketball court.
Shprentz sympathized with residents in Shadowood. “I think [any pool closure] is really unfortunate,” she said. “I think the discussion needs to be about increasing the utilization of the pools. But it’s clear that some members of the committee are advocates of pool closure.”
Kathleen Driscoll McKee, a committee member and RA board member, voted to keep Shadowood open. She thinks pool closures may be bad policy given the expectation of increased population growth in Reston.
“I’m wondering if we might need more, not less,” she said in an interview after the meeting. She suggested that decisions be deferred until the committee sees better statistics about future growth.
The committee will compile all of its recommendations for the association at the end of the year.
LAST SUMMER, PROS Consulting of Texas released a report on Reston’s recreational facilities. The report recommended that RA consider closing underutilized pools to save money on operating costs, which run about $57,000 a year per pool.
Of the five pools with low participation levels, the report specifically recommended Tall Oaks and Shadowood pools for closing. “Both are poorly performing, older pools (put in service in 1977 and 1975, respectively), are geographically close to other pools, and may better serve the community converted to other desirable uses,” the report states.
The report also said that if both pools were closed, RA could save roughly $1 million in capital investment over 10 years.
RA formed the Parks and Recreation Planning Committee soon after the PROS report was released.
At a public hearing held last month by the committee, a large crowd gathered to support the idea of community pools.
“I think it would be really terrible if any of our neighborhood pools were closed,” said Reston’s founder Robert E. Simon at the hearing.
Many residents questioned the timing of the hearing since the community had recently voted overwhelmingly to support changes to the governing documents. During the campaign leading up to the referendum, RA board members promised that amenity closures could be avoided with approval of the new documents.