Beckley pool likely on last leg after 2023 season

Aug. 18—With 10 lifeguards and one pool manager, the Sharon Dempsey Memorial Pool at New River Park was open for roughly eight weeks this summer.

Though many might have assumed the pool would stay open till Labor Day, Beckley Parks and Recreation Director Leslie Gray Baker said an early August closure for pools is now the new norm.

"We closed the fifth of August, and it was just the inevitable conclusion," Baker said. "It wasn't a decision that I had to make. We had known earlier that (the lifeguards) were going to WVU. They were going to Marshall. I had two high school students, but they were both involved in band or sports, and everybody just wanted a few days to prepare before they left."

Out of the eight weeks the pool was open, Baker said they had one scheduled closure due to staffing as well as a few closures that were weather-related.

This was vastly different from last year when the city pools would regularly close unexpectedly due to staffing shortages.

One issue that did plague the Sharon Dempsey pool was maintenance.

Now over 50 years old, the Sharon Dempsey pool is on "life support," Baker said.

"It's got two cracks in it," she said. "We busted every piece of equipment (this year). I mean, it was held together with rubber bands."

To keep the pool going this summer, Baker said parts were taken from the Historic Black Knight Municipal Park pool to keep the Sharon Dempsey pool running.

As a result, Baker said the Black Knight pool is "not serviceable at all."

"We would have to buy a lot of new stuff because we just kept having to rob from over there," she said.

Baker went on to say that without some major renovations, she is unsure how many more years the Sharon Dempsey pool has left in it.

"I could maybe eke one more summer out of it, but it just kept getting cracks and we were just holding our breath," she said.

To decide what the future holds for both city pools, Baker said she'd like to commission a feasibility study, which could be costly, as would the repairs needed for both pools to operate.

Those funds would have to come from somewhere else within the city's budget as the pool does not generate enough revenue to cover operational costs.

For 2023, Baker said the Sharon Dempsey pool had 7,000 people file through pool gates, generating $45,000 at a cost of $80,000.

Baker said municipal-run pools typically cost more than they bring in.

Last year, the city wound up even deeper in the red after paying $130,000 to USA Pools/USA Management to manage the staff and operate the city's two swimming facilities from May 28 to Sept. 5.

In the end, neither pool opened on time and both were often closed due to a lack of lifeguards. The city is in litigation with USA Pools in the hope of recouping some of those funds.

According to figures from city treasurer Billie Trump, the city took in about $7,000 more in revenue in 2022 with both pools open.

The Sharon Dempsey pool, which opened a month behind schedule and closed for roughly a dozen days in August, generated $18,747 in admissions and $8,463.34 in concessions.

For the Black Knight pool, which was open for roughly a month in 2022, the revenue from admissions was $13,080.34 while concessions were $7,309.

Six years ago, the Sharon Dempsey pool brought in more than $143,000. However, the actual profits for that year were just under $1,000.

The two pools together had operating expenses in 2019 of $102,334, which was $23,031 more than the pools' combined income of $79,303.

Maintenance needs aside, Bakers said she felt the season went well.

"(The lifeguards) were there every day that they agreed to be there, and they were very engaging," she said. "They interacted with families and children. They played games, they did competitions. It went very, very smoothly."

Baker said she credits much of this success to having an onsite pool manager as opposed to last year when the pool was run by the out-of-state pool management company.

She added that the lifeguards this summer were vigilant when it came to safety and performed a total of 15 saves.

"For several of them it was their first save, and it was really an eye-opening experience for them," Baker said. "They all agreed that it was a little bit more difficult than they thought. But after you get the rhythm of it, you learn who to keep an eye on, and they have matured well into their positions, and fingers crossed, they all say they're coming back next year."

Email: jmoore@register-herald.com