RIDGECREST, Calif. (KERO) — In 1972, Vietnam veteran Sgt. John Pinney used his love of swimming to open a community pool for the city of Ridgecrest. However, over the last five years, that pool has been out commission and now it’s one of the areas that the city hopes to revitalize using Measure P funds.
“I want to show Ridgecrest as what Ridgecrest is. This is not who we are, this is who we’ve been,” said Ridgecrest Mayor Eric Bruen.
Bruen said for half a decade, the desert city’s only community pool has degraded after initially closing in 2017 due to an ADA complaint.
“This place is near and dear to my heart, my son, my oldest child learned how to swim here,” Bruen said. “My second son was starting his lessons here roughly around the time the pool closed. “
The city settled the complaint but couldn’t settle the finances to reopen the facility.
“The state of California has not left our small local rural communities in great condition, fiscally. Being so remote as well as being a highly successful technical community, said Bruen. “We don’t have access to some of the grant or other programs.”
With the passing of a one percent sales tax, though, Bruen says they can now work on restoring the pool. The measure is expected to bring in around $6.5 million dollars a year in revenue.
“We’re ready to build our community” he said.
Building the community means restoring important recreational areas as well as public roads, which the city’s public works department says crack frequently due to small tremors and weather conditions.
“Temperature swings out here are drastic and temperature changes are brutal on all sorts of infrastructure,” said Travis Reed, Deputy City Manager and Public Works Director. “Our parks are old. We have some parks that don’t have restrooms they have outhouses.”
The city also hopes to use Measure P funds to meet a $1.7 million dollar increase in costs negotiated with the Kern County Fire department back in 2021.
“Ridgecrest at that time didn’t have $1.7 million to make that up and they gave us an escalating time frame and we thought the most effective mean would be to put forth a measure to ensure we can cover those costs,” Bruen said.
City officials say they hope to have a list of Measure P projects ready to go in time for the second city council meeting in January. They also hope to have the pool up and running again in time for the summer of 2025.
