Below are video highlights from the discussion among City of San Diego City Councilmembers and Parks & Recreation Department staff members. They discuss protecting our recreational youth swim and water polo programs offered at ALL city pools, along with the how City Parks & Recreation staff came to the conclusion to make these recommended cuts. They also discuss prevalent pool infrastructure issues and frequent pool closures.

These are just highlights. If you want to see the entire meeting to hear other comments and topics, please visit the City’s website here. Are you inspired to connect with your elected official and community representatives? They want to hear from all of us. Here’s their contact information.

During her questions, one an official from the Parks and Recreation Department shared how they came to the decision to recommend the reduction of youth swim team and water polo teams year-round. “When we look at when we were preparing these reductions, none of them were easy. We looked back to our priorities in Aquatics. First and foremost is our Learn to Swim programs. Drowning is still the leading cause of death for toddlers 1-4. And the second leading cause of accidental death for youth 1 to 14. So Learn to Swim is our number one (priority), we’re going to protect that with everything that we have. After that is water fitness, where our participants tend to be older adults. In looking at our Age Friendly Action Plan, and in looking to ensure that we have programs for all ages, we want to protect that as well. Then comes our recreational programs such as water polo and swim team. So that was a very difficult decision. If we were to look at alternative reductions, we would really be looking at a reduction in pool hours across the board, which would impact all of the programs I just mentioned.”