Lubbock Residents Look To Surrounding Towns For Summertime Relief

This is a very sad trend.

The Waterpark

The local waterpark posted it's admission price for the coming season and people have a little sticker-shock. I think it's mostly because these people are comparing the price to our former swimming pool prices and not waterpark prices. Still, even though $36 may be a fair price, that's nearly $150 ($144) for a family of four. For a lot of families that may be a once a year treat, and not an every weekend cooldown (but you may want to check on their season passes).

Embarrassing For Lubbock

Our elected officials are, I guess, doing what they are elected to do. Somewhere along the line people forgot that austerity measures can have a real impact on a community. Lubbock currently has NO public pools. That's right, a town of 263,000, with about 320,000 in the greater Lubbock area has no pools. Sure, I few splash pads are on the way, but I think kids outgrow them pretty quickly.

The Trend

Here's the part that grinds my gears. I noticed people posting about all of the public pools around us. Pools in Brownfield and Big Spring earned raves and there were mentions of smaller pools in places like Post and Spur too. And how about the Littlefield Aquatic Center:

And here's the Doug Russel Pool In Midland:

Accountability

Someone decided that our leaky Lubbock pools were not worth saving and closed them without any backup plan in place. It's just a guess, but I'm betting that everyone who went along with this decision has their own pool, or easy access to one. Did we not learn any lessons when we gave away the Coliseum and Auditorium and did not have a strong plan for rodeo and other events in place? Temperatures are already at or near 100 degrees and public pools were one of the few affordable summertime options for kids. This is ridiculous.  We will have a new mayor soon and a mostly new city council. They need to put a new city pool, or a vote on one, on the agenda immediately.