The City of St Joseph is hoping you’ll attend meetings this week to discuss the future of the city’s public swimming facilities. Public Information Officer Mary Robertson says they’ll discuss options and offer tours of all three pools this week.

The first meeting is scheduled Tuesday night at St Peter Lutheran Church, 3524 St Joseph Avenue. Afterward you can tour the pool at Krug Park.

The next meeting will be Wednesday at the Aquatic Park, 402 South Noyes Boulevard, with a tour of the Aquatic Park available afterward. The third and final meeting is Thursday at the Keys Gymnasium at 6001 South Ninth Street, with a tour of the Hyde Park Pool to follow.

All three meetings are scheduled from 6:30 to 8pm.

Extensive repairs are needed at the Hyde Pool. An earlier cost estimate, which may no longer be accurate, pegged the cost of those repairs at between $600,000 and $800,000. That pool is closed this summer for the second year in a row. The city has been unable to open the Krug Pool full time because of a lifeguard shortage. The Krug Pool and the Aquatic Center are in need of some improvements as well.

Ms Robertson says the meetings will provide the public with an overview of the various problems, as well as a closer look at some of the options being explored.

Those include not opening the pools, and replacing them with what are called “spraygrounds.” They’ll show you just what that is and what it would cost. They’re also exploring a possible agreement with Missouri Western State University, which has had issues with its swimming pool as well.

Robertson says that could lead to an indoor community pool on campus.