The Crook County Parks & Recreation District is done dumping money into Prineville’s 61-year-old outdoor pool.

The facility, which is open only during the summer months, leaks thousands of gallons of water each year and has a floor that leaves many swimmers with cuts and nicks.

The pool is old enough — it was built in 1954 — that finding replacement parts for it is sometimes impossible, said Crook County Parks & Recreation board member Donna White.

“It’s archaic,” White said Thursday. “Last year was a good year — we didn’t exceed our budget — but we had to fix the drainage system in the shower room. Two years ago we had to work on the actual mechanics of the pool, and some of the parts aren’t even available.”

With the current pool on life support, the board is forming a steering committee to explore the option of building a new, voter-approved aquatic center. Crook County voters have shot down two previous pool concepts in the past 15 years — a $7 million indoor/outdoor aquatic center failed in 2002 by more than 2-to-1, while a $12 million bond for a similar concept in 2006 was opposed by 53 percent of those who voted.

The park district will meet at 5:30 p.m. Monday at Prineville’s Juniper Art Guild to start forming its steering committee, which will be made up of volunteers from the community. The meeting is open to the public.

“I was here trying to push for the (new) pool the first and second time,” Prineville Mayor Betty Roppe said. “We’ll have a meeting Monday night, and I intend to be there. We definitely need a new swimming pool, something that has year-round use.”

According to White, the board is looking for the committee to find out what exactly the community wants in terms of aquatic recreation.

Would voters support a new pool concept? Do they want an indoor and outdoor pool setup, similar to Bend’s Juniper Swim & Fitness Center, or an indoor-only pool like the Madras Aquatic Center? Where would a new pool be located? And what role — if any — would the city and the Crook County School District play in the process?

“I’m hoping they survey the community to find out precisely what the community wants,” said White, who was one of the leading supporters of the 2006 bond measure that failed before being elected to the park board in 2007. “They really need to do their best to nail down a price, and the sooner they do that the better.”

Roppe and White said ideally the committee would have a proposal the board can take to voters in the November 2016 election.

“The longer we put this off, the more it’s going to cost,” Roppe said. “My theory is let’s build it, we all know we need it.

“We’re spending more money to keep this pool we have limping along than if we had built the pool we should have (in 2002 or 2006),” she added. “I’m a big believer in telling people why they need it, what it costs and why it costs that. We do that, and I think we’ll get it through.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7829,

beastes@bendbulletin.com