Group urgently seeks help to keep Orchard Mesa Pool open

Orchard Mesa Pool

Mesa County residents have formed a group to try to keep Orchard Mesa Community Center Pool open, and they are asking the rest of the community for help.

In mid-November, 2022, the City of Grand Junction announced the possible closure of the Orchard Mesa Pool in early 2023.

The group, Save the Pool, is encouraging people with families to come to the December 21st Grand Junction City Council meeting this Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall Auditorium, 250 N. 5th Street, Grand Junction to stand in solidarity to keep the pool open.

Save The Pool is imploring the parties that fund and operate the pool — the City of Grand Junction, Mesa County and the School District 51 — to invest in the continued operation and maintenance of Orchard Mesa Pool. Here’s why they feel this facility is so important to the community:
1) The pool is a staple of the Orchard Mesa community, one of the lowest income areas in our county. It plays a huge role in the safety and enrichment of the entire city. It’s the only pool that provides affordable swimming lessons year-round to children and adults and it also offers an affordable exercise option to the retired and disabled population, as lap swim is available at an accessible rate.
2) The OM pool is the closest thing Grand Junction has to a recreation center. While a recreation center continues to be a point of discussion with community leaders, it hasn’t broken ground, nor is its construction guaranteed. Save the Pool believes that pulling this resource from its current patrons would be a huge detriment.
3) Many young adults in our community get their first jobs here, including many members of Save the Pool. They learn life-saving skills and a work ethic that led them to pursue careers in medical fields as paramedics, doctors, nurses, and other notable professions like teachers, pilots, health service workers, and community leaders.
While community leaders have decided that they may not be able to afford to keep this pool open, Save the Pool’s question is “How can you afford not to?”
Recreational drug use is a rising issue among teens and young adults, and Mesa County has an incredibly high suicide rate among the same population. Save the Pools wants to know “How can we afford not to invest in the mental and physical health and wellness of our community? We have to,” the group says.

  2 comments for “Group urgently seeks help to keep Orchard Mesa Pool open

  1. The OM Pool is needed in Orchard Mesa, & is one of few amenities that remain in OM. Both Mesa County & City Government have had & continue to have little time for the Orchard Mesa area. To this day both governments continue to favor Redlands & or North area in any and all ways, from everything to taking forever to fix hazardess roads to shutting down OM Pool, so they can build a new one in a ‘BETTER”area.as far away from OM as possible. Years ago unethical real estate agents refused to show property on OM, as advised by others. If a realtor refuses to show property in a certain area now, they will have to answer to a hearing re their “unethical behavior” & could lose their real estate license in the process. Has anyone ever seen any ethics or civil rights rules that city & county officials must abide by????

  2. The pool is not just a staple for Orchard mesa. It’s a necessity for the whole community. Look around us. All these small towns have a rec center. I’m currently working in Cortez Colorado population 10,000. They have a beautiful rec center with a beautiful six lane pool. Grand Junction didn’t want to spend the money for a rec center. It appears they still don’t. It’s atrocious that we don’t have a first class rec center for the size of our town. It’s no doubt in my mind that this is a political issue for some people. Maybe exercise turned you into a liberal? We need a community center with a pool big enough to support everybody, a pool we don’t have to have very limited time to use. But an actual pool you can go to whenever you want like most communities do, a place where kids can hang out. Grand Junction is 20 years behind the time in a rec center.

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