Regina councillors want to discuss reopening outdoor pools for summer 2020

The government of Saskatchewan has given people the go-ahead to dive into outdoor swimming pools, but so far, the City of Regina is planning on keeping its pools shuttered throughout the summer. 

The city has opened spray pads but not swimming pools. Three city councillors are hoping that will change. 

"The kids are back out. They're going crazy over the spray parks being open, so I can imagine the excitement to get into a swimming pool, whether it's inside or out," Coun. Jerry Flegel said.

He, along with fellow councillors Lori Bresciani and Andrew Stevens, are putting forward a notice of motion to discuss reopening outdoor pools at city council's Wednesday meeting.  

Regent Pool, Massey Pool and Dewdney Pool could potentially open. 

Flegel said the city wasn't looking at pools initially because they were not expecting the province to allow them to reopen so quickly. 

"I wouldn't say we got caught off guard, but what we were told was that … later in the season, that the pools are going to open. So we diverted some of our attention to other parts of the city," Flegel said. 

"So now we're in a pickle of what do we do?" he said. "We weren't expecting these to be given the go-ahead as soon as they have."

Flegel said one option could be to open the three outdoor pools currently in operation. Another option could be to look toward indoor pools that could reopen and stay open the rest of the year. 

"We're not sure. We'll have a discussion about it to talk to administration and see what we can do."

The provincial government had allowed outdoor pools to open as early as this week. Indoor pools will be allowed to open in Phase 4.2 of the Re-Open Saskatchewan plan.

Flegel said city council needs to have unanimous consent to talk about the options and hopes other councillors are open to the discussion. He said he hopes the discussion will happen Wednesday, instead of in one month, because then the swimming season would be a lot shorter. 

If pools were to open, people would be required to physically distance and pools would have a cap of 90 people at one time — as per provincial health guidelines. Flegel said research shows pools could be kept clean from the virus as the virus does not survive in water. 

"The demand is going to be high … and the three pools that are left are used quite a bit," he said.

"We've never had an issue of not having enough people going to the pools and especially now with there only being three, it'll make it even a harder challenge."

Flegel said getting indoor pools open soon as well could help spread swimmers out around the city. 

"I'm not sure how we're going to work it."

The City of Saskatoon is expecting to open two of its outdoor pools in the first week of July.