STOCKTON, Calif. — After sitting dry and unused for eight years, the City of Stockton's swimming pool at Victory Park is slated to be replaced and opened for the public once again.
The City of Stockton is now accepting bids for a project to replace the public swimming pool at Victory Park, ending a nearly six-year community campaign aimed at re-opening the pool which the City closed in 2013. A walkthrough for companies wishing to replace the pool will be held Dec. 9.
For Kayta Evanhoe, who lives in the Victory Park neighborhood, the new pool means new opportunities for children in the city.
"Not all families can afford to go out and join InShape or go up north where there are a lot of neighborhood pools funded by homeowners associations," Evanhoe said. "Everybody deserves to have a place to cool off, especially in the Central Valley in the summer."
Evanhoe, who is also an elementary school teacher, began advocating for the pool when she moved back to her hometown of Stockton realizing that the same pool she swam in as a child had fallen into disrepair.
"It's pretty ghastly looking," Evanhoe said, describing the vacant pool. "It's an empty, cracked slab of concrete that periodically fills with water until someone complains and they empty it out. It's a real shame."
Other community members soon joined Evanhoe in calling on the city to rebuild the once thriving pool, creating a Facebook page to raise awareness.
"We didn’t have a name, but in 2015 and 2016, residents were invited to go to these workshops and aquatic forums with the then city leaders and it was so exciting," Evanhoe said. "We basically just wanted a pool we can swim in, but that's when the long story started."
In 2013, the City of Stockton shut down the public pool citing code violations. The pool, pumphouse, bathhouse, and mechanical room must now be replaced, according to city documents. The new pool will be funded partly through the city's Measure M funds with additional funding from a state grant through Proposition 68. The state grant, which also provides funding for the construction of an aquatics center at Stockton's McKinley Park, requires construction to be completed by 2024.
"I feel such happiness that 8-year-olds or 6-year-olds now -- by the time they are in high school -- might be on the swim team," Evanhoe said. "It makes me sad when I think about the kids in the last 10 years living here who may not have learned how to swim."
After contractors submit bids to the City, the council will vote on which company will complete the project and a tentative completion date will be made public, according to Connie Cochran, spokesperson for the City of Stockton. Proposals for interested companies are due by Dec. 29.
"This end of town doesn't get the attention of some other parts and of course Victory Park is a beautiful park," Evanhoe said. "They are getting the fact that we're not going away and want this pool open."
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