These are hard times for one of San Diego's most popular municipal pools -- and the thousands of swimmers who use it.
Balboa Park’s Bud Kearns Memorial Pool failed to re-open as usual in April, after seasonal maintenance, and it might not for some time.
The place has been a splashy, mid-city oasis in the park’s Morley Field area since 1933, making it San Diego’s oldest plunge.
By now it's seen much better days, no thanks to decades of "deferred maintenance." Costly upgrades that figure to top seven figures and take prolonged downtime loom ahead as summer approaches.
"It's already hot, and we have kids,” North Park resident Derek Lopez told NBC 7 on Monday, giving the long-empty pool a forlorn look during a noon-hour dog-walking stroll. “At this time last year, this pool was full … now it’s a graveyard."
That assessment appears hard to argue with.
No Park & Rec crews or contractors have been seen in the vicinity for weeks.
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Nobody seems to answer a city information line posted on flyers around the pool.
Bureaucratic paperwork obtained by NBC 7 says the main drain has to be replaced.
The filtration system and sump pump need upgrades.
The Health Department may wind up ordering remedial work on the fence and poolside areas.
Quick fixes costing $200,000 might eke out a couple months of use in late summer, early fall.
But indications are, it 'll eventually take $1.2 million and nine months to overhaul the entire shebang.
In the meantime, until things get back to the way they were before the plug was pulled at Bud Kearns, the city's "encouraging" swimmers to seek out other alternatives.
Inquiring minds can’t help but wonder exactly how long they’ll have to wait – and whether to hold their breath.
Says Lopez: "I have a friend who runs another pool -- the next closest pool -- and she says, her words were: 'The pool's down for the count’.”
In the whole scheme of the city’s projected $1.7 billion city's infrastructure deficit, this might qualify as more of a low-priority luxury than urban necessity.
But Spring Valley resident Gil Mahaney, a tennis coach passing by the pool after giving Monday morning lessons on the courts at Morley Field, offered a countervailing view.
"It’s about cooling off, a safe way to provide exercise and promote healthy living -- which kind of helps us all in the long run, because people won't be getting as sick,” Mahaney argued. “They're doing something healthy. Yeah -- I'd say as far as quality of life, it should be up there."
We reached out to the mayor's office for an idea of when repairs might be launched and completed -- both short-term and long-term -- but immediately estimates were forthcoming.
All that could depend on late-stage allocations in the city's new budget cycle that starts July 1st.
Todd Gloria, the city councilman whose Third District encompasses Balboa Park, says he's hearing complaints from quite a few frustrated constituents.
"I've said multiple times, we have to do something more than this,” he said in an interview Monday I've been very critical of the mayor's approach, which is piecemeal and fairly meek when it comes to trying to repair our neighborhoods. What we're asking is to go further."
Looking at the grim reality of a long, hot summer with no “cooling off’ for his family within quick driving distance, Lopez opened up a window to his heart as a homeowner, taxpayer and voter:
“Something like this draws up emotions these emotions,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who rely on this pool, who use this pool. It’s a huge, huge foundation to the community.”
