hello everyone in BBQ-land,
this is a narrative of two interviews that shows how much we owe to Barbara McCann and Sue Dindia-Gray for shepherding our new Nehalem pool into being.
om peace namaste
lucy brook
Hello friends and neighbors in north county —
Last spring we enjoyed several hours interviewing Barbara McCann and Sue Dindia-Gray about their experiences leading to opening of the new pool in Nehalem. The two women have been friends since meeting as parents of children learning to swim in the old pool almost forty years ago. Throughout those years they have also been colleagues in the NCRD swim program. Barbara was Aquatics Director until she became Executive Director of NCRD three years ago. Sue managed the swim program in the old pool and hopefully will carry that responsibility into the new pool.
With the new pool opening next Monday, we want to share with you what we heard from Barbara and Sue during those few hours four months ago. We hope our attached notes help you understand why we give them so much credit for bringing our new pool to our community.
Mark Beach and Lucy Brook
“I” = interviewer
I: Barbara and Sue, you two started talking about a new pool as soon as the recreation district was founded in 1996. Was there some point when your conversation changed from ‘someday we’ll get this’ to your commitment to make it happen?
BARBARA: We knew the old pool was too popular to close and too expensive to keep open. After the board voted 23 years ago to build a new pool, we made two commitments: to keep the old pool open until we had a new pool, and to devote ourselves to whatever it took to get that new pool built. Those commitments provided the foundation for everything we did regarding the aquatics program.
The pool itself drove home the message of demanding replacement when maintenance staff drained it for repainting in 2003. It was scheduled to open the end of January, but the empty tank revealed a crack needing repair by a specialist from Portland. We also learned repainting the interior required sandblasting first. That meant we couldn’t reopen until late February, meaning we would be closed almost two months. That closure brought us to the attention of state code inspectors who said we could not reopen until we met ADA standards. We had to convince them we were grandfathered in from code. Also that we were not closed but simply suspended for maintenance. We won the argument and realized we had just begun the battle to build a new pool.
SUE: Try telling your neighbor’s daughter that her ninth birthday party on Friday night in the pool is cancelled because the pool doesn’t have any water in it. Her sister and her mother and both grandmothers all had ninth birthday parties in the pool. Now she can’t.
I: Ooh, it had to hurt to say that. Did that experience help you realize you two had to lead the fight for a new pool? If so, where did you imagine that pool would be and how big did you think it would be?
BARBARA: Over the years we’ve each had painful experiences like the one Sue described because we knew how passionately many locals felt about the pool. But dealing with your two questions, I don’t remember having a clear answer to either one. I suppose we thought outside somewhere and bigger than the current pool. But outside where? And what did bigger mean?
Then the pool smacked us again, as if to shout we better develop answers. The drains clogged up. We brought everybody in – Roto-Rooter, plumbers – to unclog them. No one could do it. Then I asked the board to let me bring in local contractors. Local guys literally dug up the deck. With the help of an excavator and a plumber they put in a cleanout valve. They actually took down part of the wall to the outside and made a new path for the water to drain. We got the pool up and running again. During that time a county health inspector came to see what was going on. There was dirt on the deck because the men had literally dug down ten feet. The inspector told me that we must close the pool. I said, “No, we’re grandfathered in.” He said, “you don’t meet code.” I said, “I know, but the state inspector said as long as we continue to teach children to swim and work towards replacing this pool, they will never shut us down because they like what we’re doing. We just have to stick with the goal.” He said, “I think it’s time to retire the old grandfather.” I literally had to stand in his way and say no. And we did it. We unblocked the drains. We opened the pool again, with the State Health Inspector’s approval.
SUE: Those experiences really drove home the point that our aging pool was on life support. No matter how you looked at it – trouble with maintenance, cost of heating and circulating water, issues with code enforcement, damage by humid air to floors of the classrooms above it – it was hard to justify keeping it open. But our mission to teach every kid swimming and water safety shoved every objection aside.
I: Wasn’t it about this time the board paid for consultants about capital improvements and sources of additional financing?
BARBARA: Back in 2006 we spent almost $34,000 on studies of the feasibility of financing capital projects. The reports said there were plenty of projects that needed doing, but little community support for raising money to do them.
In the spring of 2008 a fiscal review committee told the board there was not enough money to keep operations going until tax money arrived in the fall. More importantly, the committee report said, “To achieve the goal of a new aquatics center, NCRD must first demonstrate good fiscal management. If we hope to attract capital improvement funding from resources such as grants and donations, we must show them we are a stable and sound operation.”
At that point the general manager quit and the chair of the board took the job as a volunteer. Peter Nunn worked for free for six months, then was hired as general manager for another six years. Peter’s organizational skills and vision brought NCRD back from the brink of closure.
We couldn’t keep the pool open without more revenue, so during that time much of our staff worked for free. At the same time, our board put a five-year levy on the November 2008 ballot. Volunteers campaigned to get votes of support. Sue herself made PowerPoint presentations to every organization and political entity meeting on a regular basis. And we did a huge get-out-the-vote campaign. We canvassed the three towns in every way we could dream up. The levy passed by 14 votes.
With the tax levy doubling the district’s operational income, Peter made two major changes the following year. One was to reserve timber revenue for capital costs. The other was to develop the auditorium into a Performing Arts Center. He viewed the old school auditorium as an asset to build community support over the years.
I: How was the decision made to start the process of building the new pool, finding an architect, having a financing plan?
BARBARA: In 2012, after putting the organization on a sound financial basis, Peter sent out requests for proposals to build a new pool. We got a dozen submissions from premier pool architects. A committee of staff, board and volunteers went through all of them. We chose Carl Sherwood, who worked through the end of the project this year.
I: When you started working with the architect with ideas for plans, how did you decide on a six-lane pool?
BARBARA: Whew, that was a real process. All of us knew we had outgrown the four-lane pool. It seemed clear we needed at least six lanes. But there were some who wanted only four lanes. “Live within our means” – that kind of thing. Others of us, including the chair of the board, thought a new pool needed eight lanes – that the community would grow into it. For over a year debate went back and forth over how many lanes. We presented options at town halls. We visited other pools. We even went to a conference about building pools sponsored by USA Swimming. Carl must have drawn plans somewhere between a half dozen and ten times over the years–basically schematics, not full working drawings. Finally, the board decided on six lanes.
By 2020 we had almost $2,000,000 from the timber tax money Peter Nunn had started reserving ten years earlier. Friends of NCRD held fundraisers. Dozens of other donors had given smaller amounts. Executive Director David Wiegan felt the time was right to put a bond measure on the November ballot. He thought overwhelming voter support for the five-year levy in 2018 meant we would have the votes. He was right. Voters approved a 4.3 million dollar bond to help finance the new pool.
I: Barb, you became Executive Director three years ago. What do you remember feeling when the board gave you that job?
BARBARA: I felt grateful that Peter Nunn and David Wiegan provided the leadership we needed during the ten years they were Executive Directors. Also, for Jack Bloom who was chair of the board during those years. Jack led the board keeping clear focus on our goals and fiscal discipline to reach them. By the time I became Executive Director, the legacy of those three men had provided the framework. But I still had to handle the increased costs of a new pool created by the Covid crisis. In March of 2023 I signed the contract. I oversaw its construction for two years. I literally watched our new pool appear outside my office window.
I: What was the biggest challenge of getting to this point?
BARBARA: The big challenge was Covid driving up the cost. Our nine-million-dollar pool turned into a fifteen-million-dollar pool.
I: But people understood that. That was going on everywhere.
BARBARA: It was still a shocker. We still had to find that extra money somewhere. Before Covid we had the money we needed. We could have built it. It was a big setback.
When we started building after Covid we had enough money to begin but not to finish. The contractors were amazing, letting us build the pool in three phases, giving us time to continue fundraising. We got generous support from our local community, including an anonymous donation of one million dollars; Tillamook Adventist Hospital and JTMF Foundation each gave us half a million dollars; Tillamook County gave us $550,000 and a commitment of continued support over the next five years.
I: Sue, let’s wind up with your thoughts for the new pool.
SUE: I’m excited for the new pool, but I’m also emotional about leaving the old pool. I love the smallness of it because the new pool is a whole other animal. The old pool was in our backyard where we knew every parent, every kid. The times in that pool were amazing—camaraderie and family. You knew everybody at open swim. Everybody knew everybody. I hope the new pool can keep some of that feeling.
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