A $12,000 repair is coming to the Washington Steele Family Aquatic Center pool. Valves will be replaced in the mechanical room of the pool. The current ones are original from when the pool was built in 2000. City Administrator Brent Hinson explained at the recent council meeting that this repair was budgeted, “This was a planned item that we had for this budget, we increased the amount for pool maintenance kind of as we discussed during budget time with the idea that now we’ve got a 20-year-old facility so we really need to be spending some, you know, a few chunks of money to keep it a nice facility. This is a major thing. Luckily, I guess we still have a few days left of the pool season, but it’s made it the whole season. There as a little bit of concern, because this has been kind of in an iffy situation, but we’ve made it through pool season and now it’s time to get this repair made.”

Two bids were received and the other was for $20,000. The bid was awarded to Kuenster Plumbing, Heating, and Air out of Kalona. The pool is owned by the city and staffed and managed by the Washington YMCA during the season.