El Segundo cuts deal for new aquatics center
The city solved two problems with a single solution last month, courtesy of the Wiseburn School District and the city’s own negotiators.
Wiseburn’s proposal to build a high school in east El Segundo originally faced much opposition, both within the community and from the City Council. The concern was that the facility would cost the city, particularly in increased policing, with no corresponding local benefit. The city had little recourse, however, except to threaten a lawsuit over the potential environmental impacts of a new high school – a fight that would likely have only delayed the inevitable.
Wiseburn, however, identified a second problem the city has struggled with for more than a decade: the lack of a functional community aquatics center. The city’s “Plunge” facility has long been in need of repairs beyond the city’s financial wherewithal, and different proposals for aquatic centers within residential neighborhoods invariably met opposition from nearby residents.
And so Wiseburn made El Segundo an offer it couldn’t refuse. Wiseburn, at present a K-8 district serving students from Hawthorne and unincorporated county areas, offered to construct a $6 million joint-use, state-of-the-art aquatics center adjoined to its proposed 14-acre high school campus at 201 N. Douglas St., a four-story former Northrop Grumman office building the district intends to renovate.
The City Council, on May 21, gave the district an emphatic yes.
Mayor Bill Fisher said that both the logic of the proposal and consideration with which the offer was made was striking.
“It’s kind of hard to look at them and say, ‘No, we don’t want to do this,” Fisher said. “It’s hard to look at that and not go, ‘Okay. Let’s work out the details.’”
The council unanimously agreed to enter an agreement with the school district in which it waived its right to dispute the proposed high school’s Environmental Impact Report. The agreement also requires the city to operate and maintain the facility and give Wiseburn students priority for six hours total use of the pool on weekdays.
The aquatic center will include a 50-meter competition pool, locker rooms, parking, and possibly a smaller therapy pool.
Councilman Dave Atkinson, who along with Fisher sat on the subcommittee that helped negotiate the agreement, called the agreement a win-win.
“There was always a reason not to, but not a reason to do,” said Councilman Dave Atkinson of previous aquatic center proposals. “What we were looking at, speaking for Bill on this, too, was to find a way that would benefit Wiseburn School District, which is really no different from the El Segundo School District. They just don’t happen to have the same name, when you think about it – they are teaching their children to go forth and do things great when they graduate and learn…We could have gone to court and spent thousands and thousands of dollars and eventually probably would have lost.”
“So for us to be able to get a swimming pool that we all need…and it’s not going to affect the neighborhoods, it’s not in your backyard, it’s not going to do the things a lot of people said would happen in the other locations – it made sense to myself and Bill.”