Three and a half years ago, a few Culver City parents took on a very challenging mission, creating an independent novice swim team called Culver City Swim Club (CCSC) out of the defunct “Edge” swim team in order to provide a pleasant, affordable and welcoming swimming environment for all Culver City children. (See Culver City News issue dated Jan. 31, 2008).
Because of the affordability and flexibility of the program, CCSC was a success. Currently there are more than 70 children actively swimming with CCSC during the month of May. CCSC is the only swim team at the Plunge composed predominantly of Culver City residents.
More than 300 children have, at one time or another, swum with the young program whose main goal is to give a swimming opportunity to those who would never otherwise be able to afford the fees charged by a typical swim team in the West Los Angeles area.
Many of CCSC alumni are now members of the Culver City High School polo and swim teams.
After a successful working relationship with Bill LaPointe, the former director of the Parks and Recreation Dept., and his staff, the community-oriented mission of CCSC founders is now being hindered by the current Culver City Plunge manager who invited new swimmers from Santa Monica.
This invitation has effectively resulted in a very crowded and unsafe situation for the local children that CCSC has labored so hard to help.
“My children never would have been swimming at this pool if it were not because of the affordability of CCSC” said one resident parent. “I would not be able to afford it.” This young Culver City-born swim team is a dream that became a reality for many children and their families in the city. Concerned about the latest developments at the Culver City Plunge, several resident parents in addition to the CCSC remaining founders — Habib Sissoko, an architect, and Clay Evans, a veteran swim coach and founder of SCAQ, both residents of Culver City — have requested an audience with the Mayor and two other City Council members. Some of the reasons Team Santa Monica (TSM) was invited to displace local children are not all too clear. However, one reason that is known for now is that the pool manager and TSM worked on a deal that resulted in TSM donating three bulkheads (lane dividers) to the pool facility.
It is not known whether the Director of the Parks and Recreation Dept., the Parks and Recreation Commission and the City Council were informed of this exchange. The bulkheads are held up by lane lines that are known to break. They are, consequently, a safety concern, because beginner swimmers tend to hang on them to keep their heads above water.
The kids are always discouraged by lifeguards from hanging on the lane lines and the bulkheads. These changes are requiring that youth swim teams swim “long course” for three days of the week – a change that means our youngest swimmers are asked to swim in deep water to accommodate the preferences of a tiny group of TSM’s elite swimmers.
This is extremely discouraging to younger, less experienced swimmers. The questions are:
Why would Team Santa Monica, from a very wealthy community with more swimming facilities than Culver City, abandon their area to come to Culver City?
Why would a manager of a Culver City facility seek aggressively to provide additional services to an outside group in preference to local Culver City swimmers?
Why would the pool manager knowingly take actions that ultimately will disrupt and suffocate the local teams such as CCSC, SCAQ and Royal, teams that have been using the pool for several years now? This is breaking news, and we hope you will follow up. Thank you.
Ms. Sissoko may be contacted at Habib@sissokodesign.com
Mr. Evans may be contacted at Clay@swim.net
