Surplus saves cash for pool

CITY HALL — The city commission in charge of federal grant spending recommendations took pains Wednesday to avoid touching a $1.5-million earmark for a pool at Pacific Park, citing a desire to avoid a confrontation with the City Council.

Members of the Community Development Block Grant Advisory Committee were able to fully fund $276,443 worth of school and nonprofit capital improvement projects without dipping in the $1.5 million, due in large part to savings on a Glendale Adventist Medical Center community service building renovation.

More than $42,000 left over from a fire safety overhaul of the hospital’s community gym, combined with a projected $125,000 in under-budget savings for an upcoming climate-control system, allowed the advisory committee “to be as creative as possible without going against the wishes of the City Council,” Chairman Zareh Amirian said.

The city’s total federal allotment for capital improvement projects is $2.46 million.

The City Council has worked over the past two years to accumulate the necessary money to build a new public pool at Pacific Park, and in the months leading up to the committee’s annual review of federal funding applications, Councilman Ara Najarian publicly warned committee members to not touch the $1.5 million that was predesignated for the project.

The advisory committee has in the past “borrowed” from the pool’s earmarks to fund more immediate community projects, with the promise to backfill the void with future block grants.

Before the last-minute announcement from Glendale Adventist of the leftover money and projected savings, several on the committee appeared willing to go that route again this year.

“They absolutely made the right decision,” Najarian said after the committee’s meeting, lauding the preservation of the $1.5-million earmark as an important step in realizing the return of a public pool to Glendale.

The city lost its last-remaining public pool in 2003 as part of a joint venture with the Glendale Unified School District to build Edison Elementary School.

On Tuesday, the City Council sent a revised six-lane pool to its final design stage with instructions to keep to a roughly $6-million budget, down from a previous $7.47 million.