Facing the apocalyptic prospect of a summer without swimming, Boulder’s City Council voted at a special meeting May 29 to make unexpected, major repairs next month to Veterans Memorial Pool — and to circumvent usual contracting requirements in order to fast-track the work.
The new work will add over $100,000 to the total cost of the pool renovations. But “kids in Boulder don’t have a lot to do in summer,” Mayor Rusty Giulio observed before the Council’s vote. “I think it’s important that we get the thing fixed in the time constraint available.”
The city pool was built starting in 1954. Recently, said Dennis Wortman, the city’s Public Works director, it has been leaking 14,000 gallons of water each day, placing stress on the chlorination and heating systems (and, Wortman joked, feeding the area’s water table).
The city budgeted $35,000 this year, including $20,000 from a State-Local Infrastructure Partnership Act grant, to strip paint and reseal plaster to stem the water loss. It says it has spent about $15,000 on that work so far. But its original contractor, Red Dog Painting, pulled out of the project after discovering that the underlying concrete had, in some places, deteriorated to the point where it was too brittle to paint over.
That led Wortman to search for contractors specializing in pool construction. He says he found only one willing to take on the work: Kalispell-based Sunset Pool and Construction. The company estimated a cost of $132,000 to fill 1.5-inch cracks in the pool joints, repair the deteriorating edges that seat the skimmers, and refinish the plaster surfaces.
Wortman said Sunset had tentatively agreed to start the job in early June. The repair work would take six to 10 days, after which the pool would be filled with water and cure for 28 days before the heating system could be turned on — suggesting that the pool could reopen by late July.
In order to contract quickly with Sunset, however, the city had to bypass state regulations on contracting which normally require that projects be put out to competitive bidding. The Council voted to work with Sunset Pool under an “alternative project delivery contract,” which Montana statute allows in cases where there are “significant schedule ramifications” and where an expedited contract can shorten the construction timeframe.
The Council also approved a motion for the city to take out a 10-year loan of up to $150,000 from Madison Valley Bank to fund the additional expense. Giulio estimated that the loan would add about $15,000 annually to the city’s budget.
Wortman said the repairs would give the pool 15 to 30 years of new life. “That’s not a bad price,” said Councilor Bear Taylor. And “the pool is a necessity; I don’t think anyone’s going to argue that.”
Wortman said the city also investigated the possibility of fitting a new concrete pool within the existing pool, which could have provided 50 years of life – but at a cost of over $400,000.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the estimated annual debt service from the city’s prospective $150,000 loan. The correct number is about $15,000.
