What the Cortez pool's $1.5 million would actually pay for
The figure has been in the budget argument for three weeks without a breakdown. The city's parks director has now given KSJD one — concrete, slides, the locker-room floor, the parking lot and the mechanical building.
The $1.5 million figure has run through the argument about the Cortez municipal outdoor pool since the draft 2027 budget came out: it is what the city says a lasting fix would cost, against a pool that will now open next summer but has no settled future beyond it. What the city has not published is an itemized list of what that money buys.
Parks and Recreation director Creighton Wright has now given one to KSJD, which reported it on Tuesday. Wright told the station by email that the estimate covers resurfacing the pool shell; replacing the tube slides that were taken out over the past two years after they failed; renovating the big slide; repairing the cracked and heaving concrete deck and the leaks beneath it; rebuilding the parking lot; resurfacing the locker-room floor; and shoring up the pool mechanical building, which has cracks in its walls.
Wright’s point to KSJD was that the list is not a wish list. He described the work as, in his words, “purely what is necessary to keep it operational, functional, and easier to maintain,” and said it was not extravagant.
He also told the station what the estimate leaves out. Things that might draw a wider crowd — signage, and attractions he gave as examples such as a ninja course or a Wibit inflatable water park — are not in the $1.5 million, and he said the city has not priced them.
Why it matters now
The breakdown lands in the middle of a budget argument the city has not finished. At the October 27 council meeting a resident speaking for local youth sports told the council, in the comment the Current reported last week, “We are not asking for state-of-the-art facilities or $1.5 million renovation projects,” and asked the city to separate necessary repairs from expensive renovation. Wright’s list is, in effect, the city’s answer to where that line falls.
The pool is about 70 years old. The city says it leaks between 7,000 and 28,000 gallons of treated water a day, roughly 570,000 to 840,000 gallons over a season, and that its foundation shifts slightly each year. Running it in 2027 is costed at $391,000 of net expense, against fees expected to cover about $86,000 of a $477,000 gross cost.
The council takes the 2027 budget on first reading on Tuesday, November 10, and holds its second reading and public hearing on Tuesday, November 24, at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall. The pool’s longer-term future is to be taken up through the Parks and Recreation Master Plan.
Our earlier coverage: the draft budget’s original pause and the grant condition that reversed it.