Northfield, Kenyon,Wanamingo Pools Opening

The Northfield City Council voted Tuesday night to open their community pool on July 1,2020.  The Kenyon City Council has approved opening this Friday.  Wanamingo's Community Pool opens tomorrow (June 11).

Northfield City Administrator Ben Martig was a guest during our Northfield Community Day at Professional Pride Realty in Northfield today.  He said, "We are moving ahead with opening our pool.  The Governor gave the green light on Friday to be open to the public.  We've been tabling this every meeting.  It's going to take us a little while to get the pool up and running."

Martig added, "We chose not to de-winterize it until we knew for sure we wanted to do it because it can be costly to do that.  We're going to be filling the pool up with water.  We've already got all the lifeguards that we've interviewed, we hadn't hired them yet but we're going to be kicking that off so July 1st is the date for the open.  We're gonna have a lot of protocols in place so it's safe."

"Certainly when you're in the water it's a pretty safe environment there with the chlorine. Distancing outside the pool and inside the pool we're going to have a lot more cleaning activities of the rest rooms and changing facilities.  We're excited to move ahead.  I'm sure the kids will be looking forward to some pool time."

The Kenyon City Council held a special meeting Tuesday and voted to move forward with the opening of the pool.  The plan is to open Friday.  I stopped by the facility today and some guys were very busy getting the pool ready.

Cheryl Dahl is the Pool Manager.  Lifeguards and Assistant Managers were hired previously.

The Wanamingo Community Pool opens Thursday after approval Monday by the City Council.  Open swim is Monday through Friday from 1:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.  Noon to 4:30 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through Labor Day.

Dylan Steberg is the Pool Manager in Wanamingo.

Faribault will not be opening the Aquatic Center this summer.  Mayor Kevin Voracek told KDHL Wednesday morning, "I'm kind of disappointed the pool won't be opening but by the time you get the staffing in and the chemicals down you've only got 4 1/2 weeks to try and pay for it. Every year that pool is losing money. We haven't made money on that pool since year number four."

He went on to say, "I've noticed some people on Facebook said why weren't they planning for this?  You know with the way that the Governor's working how much do you plan and how much money do you throw away before he says yes or no, so I don't know if you could really plan for it."