Kansas City, Kansas’ only public swimming pool won’t open this year, despite protests

Kansas City, Kansas, is almost fully re-opened from a year spent hunkering down during the coronavirus pandemic.

But Parkwood Pool, the only public swimming pool in Kansas City, Kansas, located in the predominantly Black neighborhood at 950 Quindaro Boulevard, will remain closed for the remainder of the year.

More than 100 residents on Friday protested the decision by the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, to keep the facility closed for a second year in a row.

Delois Tucker, a Kansas City, Kansas, resident, lamented during the oppressive heat wave over the Midwest that children in Quindaro could not cool off at the pool while community pools all around the rest of the Kansas City metro areas are re-opening for the season.

“It helps the community,” Tucker said. “Like I said, it keeps kids of the streets for the summer, it gives them something to do.”

Like most public pools, Parkwood closed last year because of COVID-19. The coronavirus remained a concern when the Unified Government decided in April not to open Parkwood Pool.

Unified Government spokeswoman Ashley Hand said city leaders had to decide in April whether to open the pool or not, during a time when vaccine distribution remained slow and the pandemic was a more pressing public health concern than it is today.

“We could not have predicted that, here we are, mid-June and people are running around like there’s no such thing as a pandemic,” Hand said.

Another complicating factor, she said, was recruiting lifeguards.

“We have really struggled,” Hand said. “We created a program, a work study program where you go in to get trained and certified as a lifeguard. To date, we only had one applicant for that program. And we were unable to find others.”

News reports locally and around the country describe some pools having a difficult time finding and hiring lifeguards. But others, like the city pool in Fairway, operate on normal hours and appears to have enough lifeguards on duty.

Tucker said the Unified Government’s reasons don’t hold water.

“I would venture to say if this pool is at 80th and State Avenue, it would be open,” Tucker said. “It would be beautified.”

Amplifying concerns about Parkwood Pool was the recent near drowning of a 13-year-old boy who, along with others, scaled the fence around the perimeter of the pool to go for a swim, even though the facility was not open. Reports indicated the boy was in critical condition.

Angel Obert, the assistant director for the Unified Government parks and recreation department, said the pool was filled with water to keep up its pipes and infrastructure.

“The pool being filled, that is something we did for maintenance issues,” Obert said.

Aside from the water reaching the top of Parkwood Pool, little else gives an indication that it’s open. There was no visible equipment out like lane dividers or lifeguard gear on Friday.

But some who attended the protest said the presence of a clear, full pool amounted to an invitation for a swim.

“Why fill it?” Sa’Mone Springsteen said. “That’s leading people to think it’s open.”

Springsteen said she worked for six years as a lifeguard at Parkwood Pool before attending college at the University of Kansas.

There were reminders of the upcoming municipal elections at Friday’s protest.

LaShonda Jackson attended, wearing a Tyrone Garner button. Garner, a former deputy chief of the Kansas City, Kansas, Police Department, filed to run for mayor against incumbent David Alvey. Chris Steineger, a former Kansas state senator, is also running for mayor and attended Friday’s event. Other candidates were there, too.

Jackson recently moved back to Kansas City, Kansas.

She said it’s surprising that Kansas City, Kansas, a community of 152,000, has only one public pool. (Bonner Springs, a city in Wyandotte County, has a public pool.)

“I come back after 15 years and there’s only one pool?” Jackson said.

Obert said when the Unified Government created a master plan for parks in Kansas City, Kansas, it learned that residents wanted more pools. But so far, new pools haven’t made their way into the city’s capital budget.