Nikole Babb
nbabb@cherryroad.com

Enter to win gift card by completing 11 question survey

Amid the City of El Dorado planning for a revamped or completely new city pool, the City has pushed out a new survey for residents to take in order to gather information on resident opinions on what they’d like to see and experience with the potential pool.

The El Dorado aquatic center was proposed at a September City Commission meeting. Afterwards a committee was formed to head plans for the center. The current city pool has issues that many municipal pools are experiencing such as water leaks and low staffing while the El Dorado High School pool isn’t used due to damage. The municipal pool also has high operating costs due to its age and outdated features.

The main reason behind building a new center is to host the recreational swimming team league championships in the coming years in addition to offering a place for residents, students and surrounding communities to utilize for school, recreation, therapy and much more. The benefits include attracting outsiders/tourists, communal use for residents, USD 490 swimmers, recreational competitive swimmers, summer pool use as well as a place for Susan B. Allen Memorial Hospital to utilize.

The most recent step taken by the committee and City Commission was to approve a contract with Garver LLC, of Wichita for services of financial forecasting, site analyzation, design mock ups and more. The contract was approved to not exceed $162,086. To lessen those costs the city has taken on surveying the general public, which includes this survey.

The survey spans 11 questions that vary from individual usage of El Dorado pools, preference of amenities, location, cost of entry, sales tax initiative to support the cost, features, programs, operating hours and demographics.

“The City has recognized the need for improvements to the existing municipal pool for a number of years, and a recent grassroots effort has brought that topic back to the forefront,” the City of El Dorado said in a Facebook post. “The City is currently working to gather information from the community to assess potential sites and conceptual layouts to determine the feasibility of a potential project.”

The survey didn’t have a closing date mentioned but incentivized residents to complete it by March 18. If completed by that date, each person who’s done so will be entered into winning one of the following: one $50 gift card, one of two $25 gift cards, or a 2025 Family Pool Pass, which is a $90 value. To complete the survey visit the website at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/9KP8XPK.