With Arizona gearing up for its infamously hot summer, the city of Sedona’s Parks and Recreation Department is discussing how to safely get more people in the water at the Sedona Community Pool.
No More Limited Attendance
The Sedona Community Pool opened in 1974 by the Sedona-Oak Creek School District, which still owns the facility. But in the past decade, the community’s usage of the area has fluctuated. During the 2020 and 2021 summers, attendance was limited to reserved slots for individuals and families. So despite having two swim teams and an array of available classes, the pool had historically low numbers.
“The last few years numbers have been quite skewed in public pools everywhere because of capacity restrictions with COVID-19,” Recreation and Aquatics Supervisor Josh Frewin said. “Last summer the Sedona Pool followed the state guidelines and started with stricter capacity limits that were eventually relaxed throughout the summer to eventually allow for a greater capacity of up to 100 people in the fenced-in area at one time.”
The pool remained open during the offseason for swimmers from local swim clubs and Sedona Red Rock High School’s teams to practice. But this upcoming summer the pool will be re-opening to full capacity and hours.
“I don’t have a way to make an expected attendance rate, because we offer so many different programs,” Frewin said. “However, I expect the lap lanes to be full once again during lap swim time six days a week, I anticipate the pool to be full of families enjoying our open recreational swim time and using the slide, we will have popular and full water aerobics classes four days a week as in the past, and I guarantee that we will put on top-notch swim lesson programs for youth that are interested in learning to swim or improving their swimming confidence.”
In December, Sedona City Council discussed the future of the pool with the city’s Park and Recreation department. At the time, the pool attributed a lower attendance amount to the pandemic, which delayed the pool’s usual opening from Memorial Day weekend to later in July.
During the summer of 2020, the pool had a total of 688 users, 57% of whom were not Sedona residents. According to Frewin, the numbers in 2020 and 2021 were similar, since both required advanced sign-up. But it was clear the main issue even at the time was keeping the pool staffed with lifeguards.
Staffing Issues
Of course, once the pool gets more attendees without limited entry, more workers will have to be hired to staff the pool — which has been an issue for years.
In 2019, the city had 26 lifeguards, which according to Parks and Recreation Director Dawn Norman were a few too many. The following summer the pool only employed nine lifeguards.
“We are currently heavily recruiting new lifeguards and have the jobs posted [online] and I have been attending job fairs, visiting the high school during lunch hour, promoting at the pool and on social media, and recruiting more lifeguards for this season,” Frewin said.
In the past, the pool closed due to staffing shortages. Many residents even took to Facebook and social media apps to complain about the rising prices in conjunction with the increasingly numerous closures. But much of those closures were attributed to sick employees or other staffing issues.
“There is a nationwide lifeguard shortage that is affecting everyone, and we are no different, but will keep recruiting and training to continue having a top-notch StarGuard Elite team of lifeguards for our pool,” Frewin said.
Frewin said that city staffers are looking for anyone 15 years old or older, even up to age 100. Typically the pool has a good amount of employees return from the previous summer. But if previous summers predict this one, it will be a struggle to convince new staff to join.
“We anticipate the pool being open Memorial Day through Labor Day with full staffing — and that the two local swim clubs, as well as the [Sedona] Red Rock High School Swim Team, will continue to provide lap swimming, swim training and other aquatic opportunities the remainder of the year to allow people access to a swimming pool year-round that seek to continue swimming,” Frewin said.
