Council: South Valley pool will stay open

At Monday’s City Council meeting, the council passed a $180,000 budget proposal on a narrow 4-3 vote to keep all three pools open for limited use. 

The $180,000 includes the $117,000 Gilroy Unified School District had asked the city to chip in to fix and operate the pool at South Valley Middle School. 

The proposal provides recreation swim and water slides at Christopher High School, swim lessons and lap swim at Gilroy High School and subsidized swim lessons and recreational swim at SVMS. Each pool will be open for more limited hours than in past years. 

The budget also includes a $38,000 operating charge for the use of the competition pool at Christopher High School, a fee that councilmen Bob Dillon and Dion Bracco were against supporting. 

“I’m aghast that they want to charge us $38,000 to use a pool that we own nearly half of,” Dillon said, referring to the $4.3 million the city contributed toward the construction of the activity pool at CHS. 

City Administrator Tom Haglund said that technically, the city’s $4.3 million was directed specifically at the activity pool, so the competition pool is considered a separate entity that the school district can charge the city to use. 

Haglund said he is in ongoing negotiations with the school district regarding an aquatics center joint agreement.

“At one point in time, we had a quid-pro-quo relationship,” Haglund said. 

Maria De Leon, recreation department director, said that she believes that the repairs at the SVMS pool will be completed in time for the summer swim session. 

Also at Monday’s meeting:

Council decided on a 7-0 vote to request the Valley Transportation Authority provide bus service to Gilroy Gardens during the summer months, even though the VTA has already said that demand for the bus route would not justify the cost of operating it.

“I want the VTA to at least try it and give it a fair chance,” Bracco said.