Holton commission commits to keeping city pool open

Holton’s municipal swimming pool will open for business in 2025, following the Holton City Commission’s purchase of a pair of items deemed necessary to keep the pool up and running.

During Monday’s commission meeting, Holton City Manager Teresa Riley reminded commissioners of a work session held the previous week at the pool about filtration and other issues at the pool, namely a dual-tank sand filtration system for pool water and a “balance tank” needed to maintain the pool’s water level, both of which were in need of replacement.

Commissioners accepted a $13,539 quote from John’s Repair of Holton to replace the balance tank, then accepted a $68,557.70 proposal from ChemQuest of Topeka for the installation of a new, dual-tank sand filtration system to replace a system that Holton Parks and Recreation Director Mike Reichle said had required a “band-aid” over a hole in one of the tanks to keep the pool open during the 2024 season.

Riley also told commissioners that she had talked with grant writer Brett Waggoner, representing Governmental Assistance Services of Lawrence, about applying for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) through the Kansas Department of Commerce for funds for more repairs at the pool, including limestone work at the pool’s historic bath house.

That CDBG application would need to be in the Department of Commerce office in May, Riley told commissioners, and if the city is awarded funds for pool work, the city could “make repairs through the winter… and be back and ready to go by the next Memorial Day.” Commissioners recommended Riley seek CDBG funds for those repairs.

Commissioners had met with Reichle on Oct. 28 to tour the 385,000-gallon swimming pool and bath house, the latter built in the mid-1930s as a Works Progress Administration project and later placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Some of the limestone on the bath house has been replaced, Reichle told commissioners, but there was still work to be done.

A more immediate concern was replacing the balance tank and sand filtration system at the pool’s pump house, and Reichle said those two items needed to be replaced in order to open the pool to the public. Reichle presented commissioners with a copy of ChemQuest’s proposal at the work session.

For more on this and other stories, please log in to your holtonrecorder.net account and select "Nov. 6, 2024" under "E-Editions."