First in a series
[Editor’s Note: At this evening’s 7 o’clock School Board meeting at School District headquarters, activist Robert Smith has promised to deliver facts about the Natatorium.]
[img]2206|right|Robert Smith||no_popup[/img]Burly Robert Smith dates his lonely but passionate one-man campaign to re-open the Natatorium on the Culver City High School campus to 2006 when his two daughters, 8 and 5 years old, were competing with the now defunct Edge Swim team.
One day in a poolside conversation at The Plunge, Edge’s home base, Edge Coach Patrick Moran mentioned the closing of the Natatorium 15 years earlier, and Mr. Smith shortly was intrigued.
He dived into what so far has been a seven-year crusade that, he says, only seems to attract notice during election cycles – thanks heavily to perennial School Board candidate Robert Zirgulis.
When the Edge folded, he recalls founding the Culver City Swim Club, along with Habib Sisko and Clay Evans. Unlike the Edge, the Swim Club is not a competitive group.
“My interest in swimming started with water safety,” Mr. Smith says. “I love going to the beach. I love going to the ocean. The first thing I wanted to do was make sure my kids could swim.
“We soon became involved in competitive swimming, and we still are, with the Royal team,” one of three that train at the city-owned Plunge.
Meanwhile, Mr. Smith, an engineer by profession, began his probe of Natatorium history, why it was shuttered, how he could convince authorities to rehabilitate it.
“I started to gather information, make contacts, do research,” he said.
Did Mr. Smith meet with much resistance?
“A lot of unenthusiastic doubting Thomases,” he says, just ahead of a second thought. “I shouldn’t say ‘unenthusiastic.’ I don’t want to sound unappreciative. I appreciate everyone’s involvement over the years with the Natatorium. And I appreciate what everybody does for the community.
“I don’t harbor ill feelings toward anybody in this whole community regarding the Natatorium.
“I understand why people have made certain decisions. I understand why people don’t support it now, and why people over the years have not been able to understand a way forward with the Natatorium.”
(To be continued)
