Oddly enough, I was a long ways from B'game last week when the issue came up of the BHS pool being closed for the long-term. It was just after this meeting took place as described in today's Daily Journal:
With the price tag for rebuilding the swimming pool at Burlingame High School continuously floating higher, city officials are examining ways to help pay down the cost for the highly-valued community facility. The Burlingame City Council discussed during a study session Monday, Jan. 7, strategies for collaborating with San Mateo Union High School District officials to address the reconstruction. As officials from both agencies have watched the projected cost for the total rebuild rise to $6.4 million, Burlingame Mayor Donna Colson expressed some sticker shock over the continuous construction cost hikes.
City and school officials will share the reconstruction cost, as the pool is on school district property but city programming accounts for most of its use when students aren’t swimming.
As you dive into the rest of the article you see the weakness in the California approach to having the school districts being separate from their host cities--unlike where I grew up in Massachusetts where the schools were just another department. C'est la vie. Perhaps the Big Glass Box of a new Rec Center will get some further cost engineering to carve out a couple of million? Here is a shot of the pool as it stands now--very sad.
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