DEAN SENSUI / DSENSUI@STARBULLETIN.COM
Farrington High School officials want to tear down the school's drained pool, seen here Dec. 12, and build an athletic complex.
The plaque on the bleachers of the Farrington High School swimming pool sits forgotten, locked up behind a chain-link and barbed-wire fence. Unused Farrington High
pool drains funds
By Craig Gima
cgima@starbulletin.comOn it are the names of 19 Farrington High School alumni who died in France and Italy during World War II.
The pool, which is dedicated to their memory, is drained and has not been used since 1998, despite more than $285,000 spent to repair it since 1994. Just this year, the state spent an additional $64,700 to remove access ramps to the bleachers that were falling apart.
The school estimates another $2 million in repairs to the pool is needed. If it ever does reopen, it is likely to cost another $7,000 a month to maintain the pool.
That money, school administrators believe, would be better spent on classrooms and other repair and maintenance on the aging Farrington campus.
Instead of fixing the pool, school administrators want to tear it down and replace it with a new athletic complex with a girls locker room and shower, training and weightlifting room and classrooms.
"It's like the Natatorium; there's a lot of sentimentality attached to it. But these days, with limited public dollars, I think we have to look at how we best expend those public dollars," said Rep. Dennis Arakaki (D, Kalihi Valley), who supports the school's plan to replace the pool with an athletic complex.
On a tour of the current facilities at the school, Farrington High School athletic director Harold Tanaka pointed out the showers under the pool bleachers that sometimes do not have hot water. "We let visiting teams use that," Tanaka said.
He pointed out baskets behind a locked cage where boys leave their clothes because there are no physical-education locker rooms for boys. And he noted how the current game and weightlifting rooms would be rebuilt if the pool is torn down.
Girls sports teams use the football locker room after the season is over for cross-country and soccer, Tanaka said. "We're really lacking facilities," he said.
Farrington does not have a swimming team.
If lawmakers and the governor approve, Tanaka estimated a new athletic complex can be built for $3 million, and another $1 million could be spent to rubberize the Farrington High School track, which the community could also use. Currently, he said, dirt from the track blows into classrooms.
Bernie Young, chairwoman of the Kalihi-Palama Neighborhood Board, said the community would like to see the pool reopened, but the board understands the school's position.
"It's really tough," Young said. "I think they know we'd like to see the pool in use again, but there's nothing we can do if there's no money."
The L-shaped, 50-meter pool was opened in 1955 after eight years of community fund raising. The idea of constructing the swimming pool as a memorial to alumni heroes of World War II started with a $25 donation by the parents of a Farrington alumnus killed in World War II.
Three years ago, Farrington High School alumnus and then-Gov. Ben Cayetano promised the pool would be reopened when he was told of the problems with the facility.
"I remember swimming in that pool when I was small," Arakaki said. He said there was an effort to get the city Department of Parks & Recreation to pay for the repair and maintenance of the pool so it could be reopened for the community, but the city decided against it.
Even if the money to reopen the pool can be found, the school is also worried about security and potential lawsuits if people climb the fence, use the pool after hours and get hurt, Tanaka said.
