harbinger
issue 13 / april 3, 2006 / 7500 mission road prairie village, kansas
story by laura nelson and libby nachman Twelve feet below the swimming pool’s gutters, rusted grates that once hid deep drains beneath the floor now lie unused on the concrete. The pool is empty. On March 10, custodial staff discovered a leak between the drain and the outtake pipe at the bottom of the deep end of the pool – damage that will require two to three months to determine and correct and an estimated $30,000 to $35,000, according to district manager of repairs and maintenance Bruce Kracl. To prevent further damage, the custodial staff drained the pool. Once the pool has been fixed, athletic director Lane Green said it will look and function exactly as it does now. The leak requires only a “repair to the infrastructure.”
Leigh Anne Neal, district spokeswoman, said the money for the repairs will come from the district’s capital outlay fund reserve funds, which contains money designated for short-term school maintenance. This year, the fund was budgeted for $37,520,344. The required repairs will affect the girls’ swim and dive team, school gym classes and other community teams that use the pool. The girls’ swim and dive team was already two weeks into their season when the pool was drained. Swim coaches Rob Cole and Marjorie Sherrard, along with diving coach Shelly King, had to quickly find alternative places for the team to practice while working around the existing schedules of the other district teams.
story continued on page 2