Keep SARC pool open

This is in reply to Bill Black’s guest opinion (“SARC board pleads; the public pays,” Guest Opinion by Bill Black, Sequim Gazette, July 16, page A-10) in which he advocates closing the SARC pool rather than paying about $25-$30 in taxes to keep the pool open.

Here is why we should keep the SARC pool open. During my daily water aerobics classes I have observed the following every day of the week for many years. In my class I’m usually the only male among two dozen senior women (ages 60s-90s). They come in various physical conditions: slow, cautious steps with and without canes, with walkers to support themselves, once in a while in a wheelchair with an assistant to help them get in and out of the pool, and some nearly blind but who find their way to the steps in order to enter the pool.

This class is the only means to exercise their arms, legs, lungs and heart, to allow them to stay fit to live another day. This does not come free. We seniors pay up to $700 per year for the daily aches and pains to stay healthy.

After class the pool is open to the public and as I sit in the hot tub next to the pool I observe many frail or disabled people, young and old, male and female, make it to the pool to slowly walk the shallow end of the pool to get what little exercise their bodies can withstand.

Next to the large pool is a smaller shallow pool. Every day I observe moms and dads use this shallow pool to teach their very young children how to swim and survive in the water, some parents holding their toddlers to get them acquainted with being in the water.

All this activity occurs every day at SARC. Without the only pool in Sequim, none of this life-extending and life-saving activity will take place. The elderly, the frail and disabled, young and old, will not be able to exercise their bodies and the very young will not know how to survive in water. And there will be no pool for the Sequim school swim teams. All this is worth paying $25-$30 extra in taxes each year for six years.

Leon Feigenbutz

Sequim