By Woodrow Polston
The Tri-County Swimming Pool is set to open for the season on Saturday morning. City Administrator Darren Berry said that all the preparations were in place.
“A lot of activity is starting to happen at the Vandalia Pool,” said Berry. Staff has finished filling the pool and the water has been filtered and treated. On May 21-22 staff finished guard training at the facility. This will be the first time that we have been able to do in-house training. Sophie Rost is now a certified trainer and can train our guards instead of sending them to St. Louis to be trained. On May 26, the guards and managers will be reporting to the facility for their in-service to give the pool one last cleaning and preparing it to be ready to be open for the season on May 27,” he added.
The pool will be open to the public through the summer months and will close toward the end of August. Vandalia City Administrative Assistant Terry Waters said that regular hours would be in place upon opening day.
“The hours for open swimming will be 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and 12:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Sunday,” said Waters. “We will have swim classes on June 12-15, June 26-29, July 10-13, and July 24-29. Those classes will be held from 9:45 a.m. to 11 a.m. The pool is ready to go, and we will be finishing up lifeguard training before Saturday. Those who have been doing the training have done paperwork at the Lange building and training here at the pool. Concessions have been ordered and everything is on schedule for the season,” he added.