It is the height of summer in Cleveland and the city has found itself living through a massive heat dome and record-setting temps.
Which has been particularly brutal for Clevelanders without functioning A/C or those managing prolonged power outgages.
Families, meanwhile, are looking to enjoy city parks to escape the heat and keep kids busy.
Cleveland’s public pools seem like the ideal retreat, but despite efforts to expand access this year — including moving from opening five days a week to seven — some remain closed, including the pool in Greenwood Park in Ohio City.
“You have a lot of new tenants here that have kids. I had friends over from other neighborhoods that would go in,” Kelly Koziol, a mother of two who lives on the south end of Greenwood Park, told Scene in her driveway. “And we’re all kinda upset they don’t have the pool on.”
Cleveland’s Pool Status map shows four other outdoor pools “temporarily closed” for the time being.
Neighbors got some answers at Tuesday’s meeting of the South of Lorain Block Club, its president Tim DelPapa said, as they welcomed Alexandria Nichols, the city’s new Director of Recreation, and James Clark, its Deputy Commissioner of Aquatics, for updates.
“And they stayed two hours” to talk to us, DelPapa said. “That’s something I have not seen with city officials before—especially with a contentious topic.”
Greenwood’s pool is in need of a new water main line, several sources told Scene.
The pool had maintenance work done a few years ago, Ward 7 Councilman Austin Davis said, but that was “more of the Band Aid variety, not the long-term-fix variety.”
Davis, who attended Tuesday’s meeting with city officials, said he helped communicate understanding from the City Hall side of things and a plausible date for Greenwood to reopen.
Generally “weeks to a month, not months to a year,” Davis said. “But I think that’s a big win.”
“The community got organized. We had a meeting. The officials in charge of the pool heard the community,” Davis added. “And we ended up with a really positive solution: Let’s find a way to make it work and then let’s address the long-term as it comes.”
In a statement to Scene, a city spokesperson said the Greenwood Pool could reopen before “the end of the season.”
“Despite these challenges, the city has delivered in its key priority for this summer,” they said, “expanding outdoor pool operations from five days per week to seven days per week.”
An explanation that still seemed to depress Itzel Hernandez, a resident who lives close to Greenwood, as she walked her dog through the park on Thursday.
She worried about more 90-plus temps and Greenwood being empty rather than thrumming with life.
“I feel it would just be nicer if we had it open for the summer,” she said. “To have activity here rather than it be vacant.”
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