Pittsburgh City Council approval of lifeguard pay increase doesn’t save nearly 20 pools from closure

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PITTSBURGH — The Bloomfield pool is just one of 20 other city pools that will remain closed this pool season, but not because city council wants it to be that way.

“They were supposed to fill it May 29. That did not happen. We came back from Memorial Day weekend and it was still empty,” explained Bloomfield resident Abby Schreiber. “Seeing it vacant right now is just disheartening to say the least, but it’s understandable under the circumstances.”

That’s why city councilwoman Deborah Gross has worked tirelessly to come up with a solution.

It will help keep eight city pools open as more lifeguards are applying for work, but 20 other city pools will remain closed.

She introduced a bill to increase pay for experienced lifeguards, and the council approved it Wednesday morning.

“We’ve increased those pay scales but here we’re in late June, so it’s not going to be enough time to probably get more city pools opened,” Gross explained. “I wish we started this many months ago; we might’ve made more progress, so we shifted our strategy a bit and with the leadership of councilwoman Smith, we reached out to other partners in the city who do have pools to see if we can connect city residents with pools. That might be PPS pools, for example.”

The Department of Public Works and Parks and Recreation told the council there are serious maintenance issues at many of the pools that are closed and both departments remain understaffed. They are also hoping to work with the Port Authority to help run shuttle buses to connect people to the facilities that are able to open.

“We are really disconcerted, heartbroken that some of these facilities will not be opening this summer. We will put all of our energy into making sure that the facilities get the maintenance they need,” explained Gross.

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