Drafting of Plans OKd for Long-Awaited Pool

OXNARD — For two years, they held bake sales, sold beer at the Strawberry Festival, staffed booths at boating events and peddled T-shirts, all with the goal of raising money for their dream: an Olympic-sized pool.

That dream began to come true this week for swimmers, parents and Oxnard High School boosters when district trustees agreed to hire an architectural firm to draft plans for the 25-yard by 50-meter pool.

Newport Beach-based TBP received the go-ahead Wednesday night.

Once it is open, the pool--planned for the new Oxnard High campus on Gonzalez Road--will probably be open to the community.

“It’s finally going to be a reality,” said Lynn Mikelatos, chairwoman of the Aquatic Foundation, formed two years ago to rally support and raise money for the pool.

“In the beginning, people said that the pool’s never going to be a reality,” Mikelatos said. “A lot of people said it. And we said, ‘Yes it will, and we will make it happen.’ ”

District officials estimate that the pool could be open as soon as next spring.

Pool boosters have raised $166,000, but their contribution falls far short of the estimated $1.2-million cost of the pool. Instead, most of the money will come from developers fees. The district has $600,000 in such fees already and anticipates $500,000 more by the end of the school year.

Pool supporters saw their main job as pressuring the district to keep the project alive.

“I just had to keep pushing for it to get done,” said Larry Raffaelli, a swim and water polo coach at Oxnard High School who was one of the major forces behind the pool proposal.

“I’ve made some enemies. Any time you do something where you push, people get mad. But the bottom line is it will be done. Then all the other stuff will be forgotten,” he said.

Originally, the plan was to create a 25- by 35-yard pool at the new Oxnard High School to replace an L-shaped pool at the old campus on 5th Street.

But the district’s plan to sell a 27-acre lemon orchard to finance the pool had to be ditched after county planners said the sale would violate zoning laws.

The disheartened parents and swimmers banded together to create the Aquatic Foundation, which wrote letters to the Olympic committee, politicians and businesses. It was then that they decided to press for an even larger, Olympic-sized pool, one that would attract swimmers for nationwide meets, residents, tots and senior citizens.

After the district received more developers fees than expected this year, board members decided to give the go-ahead.

Although the district has not decided whether the pool will be open to the public, Raffaelli hopes that it will be.

And once the pool opens, Raffaelli has a wish.

“I would like to be the first one to dive,” he said. “I just want to dive into it and know it’s done. It will be a dream for the community come true.”