Alameda pool to be repaired before summer season
Planning is set to begin for a project to repair the Alameda Park pool before the summer season.
The county commissioners on Wednesday, Jan. 17, approved a $37,500 professional services agreement with Integrated Aquatics of Doylestown to prepare bid specifications for the project and inspect the construction work once it begins.
The project involves removing and replacing the plaster in the main pool, said Lance Welliver, county parks and recreation director.
Work is expected to start by April 1 and be completed by the end of April, Welliver said. The pool normally opens the first Saturday in June.
Bid documents are expected to be completed by the end of this month and the project will be advertised seven to 10 days after that, he said.
The project was spurred by the discovery of pockmarks — concave, craterlike depressions — on the bottom the pool last year.
Commissioner Kevin Boozel said four or five core drilling tests that were conducted to find out what caused the pockmarks discovered no problems in the ground under the pool, and no other repairs were deemed needed.
The tests found that subsidence didn’t cause the pockmarks, said Leslie Osche, chairwoman of the commission. She said the pockmarks were found while the pool was being inspected for a scheduled resurfacing of the walls and the floor.
In addition, Welliver said his department is working on allowing the use of credit cards for purchases at the pool this summer.
In other park business, the commissioners voted to request proposals for a consultant to select trees in Alameda Park and the Sunnyview complex to be cut and sold.
The trees will be selected based on their value in the lumber market and impact on forest health, said solicitor Julie Graham.
The vote came after the commissioners unanimously voted against hiring Anundson and O’Barto Consulting Foresters of Latrobe in exchange for 10% of the timber sale price.
Osche said Anundson and O’Barto was the only company to submit a proposal the last time the county did a logging project in 2009, but there are other forestry businesses in the area now.
Anundson and O’Barto is permitted to submit another proposal, officials said.
Also, Feb. 22 is the deadline for municipalities to apply to the county for park renovation grants for projects at parks, playgrounds and trails.
If awarded, the county will provide 75% up to $10,000 toward the project. If the project exceeds $10,000, the municipality is responsible for the difference.
