Santa Ana city leaders won’t say when the new pools at Memorial Park Aquatic Center will be open to local kids – despite those same officials holding a ribbon cutting Saturday and taking hundreds of pictures at the pools ahead of the November election.
It is spurring a host of questions from residents.
Was the unveiling a political move to help incumbent campaigns?
When will the pools open exactly?
Will they be free to use and what’s holding up opening to the public?
Officials won’t respond or don’t have answers.
“Last week’s unveiling of the (Memorial Park Aquatic Center) raises more confusion than it brings excitement,” said Edward Rios, a lifelong Memorial Park resident, in a Thursday text message.
“What was the purpose of this grandeur unveiling if we aren’t able to use it? The city did not invite local Memorial Park residents, however, they did not fail to invite politicians, and aspiring politicians.”
Meanwhile, artists are asking why officials didn’t unveil the preservation of one of the most historic Chicano murals in the city, alongside the aquatic center it is located at.
Santa Ana’s ruling city council majority, alongside City Manager Alvaro Nuñez and City Spokesman Paul Eakins won’t respond to requests for phone interviews to answer questions about when the pools they unveiled Saturday will actually open.
City council members who did take questions from the press said they were surprised to hear the pools weren’t going to be open to the public after the ribbon cutting.
They say City Manager Nuñez has left them in the dark about the delay as they field questions online from residents and the Voice of OC.
Councilwoman Jessie Lopez, who is running for state assembly, said she found out about the facility still being closed to the public after trying to answer residents’ questions about the pool by directing them to the city website.
“They were coming back and saying, ‘There’s nothing on your website,’” she said in a Wednesday phone interview, adding that she then reached out to city staff for answers to their questions.
“At that point, it’s really when I realized, oh my gosh, this facility is not going to be available to the community until next year,” she added “I still cannot give you a date for when the pool facility will be open next year.”
When she reiterated that back to residents, Lopez said, they asked why.
“These are their public dollars. They have every right to ask questions. They have every right to ask about how much they’re going to be charged to use a facility that we ask them to celebrate alongside us. And I wish I had something concrete to relay to the public,” she said.
Councilman Johnathan Hernandez publicly asked Nuñez some of those questions during the council communication portion of this week’s city council meeting but the city manager would not give a specific date for the pools to open. Meanwhile, City Attorney Sonya Carvalho publicly interrupted Hernandez, saying council communications are not meant for a back and forth with staff, cutting off the discussion.
“I had to hold my city manager to account yesterday publicly because we should not be in the position where we are unveiling amenities that are non-usable to the city – that’s just dishonest. It is deceitful and it’s not good governance,” Hernandez said in a Wednesday phone interview.
He also said he has never seen an unveiling for an amenity not immediately usable to the public.
Mayor Valerie Amezcua answered a reporter’s call on Thursday and remained silent for a couple of seconds before hanging up without saying a word. She did not respond to a subsequent text message requesting comment.
Councilmembers Phil Bacerra, David Penaloza and Thai Viet Phan – who all jumped into the pool together on Saturday with Amezcua – and Councilman Ben Vazquez did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday and Thursday.
Amezcua, Vazquez and Bacerra are running for reelection. Penaloza is running for state assembly against Lopez.
Lopez said none of the council members said anything at the Saturday unveiling about the pools not being open after that day.
“I don’t know who knew or who didn’t know that information,” Lopez said. “The way that elected officials delivered their commentary made it seem like this is a permanent opening of the pool.”
Council members including Lopez posted on social media about the ribbon cutting and showcased the pools, with Vazquez even saying in an Instagram video post they were “now open to the public.”
Hernandez said Penaloza, Amezcua and Bacerra used the ribbon cutting to campaign on the taxpayers dime.
“That’s what I’m concerned has happened here. We prematurely opened an aquatic center, and this only benefited politicians who are running for re-election and those who are running for higher office. Simple as that,” Hernandez said.
“I just don’t think that there’s any other way I could see this. There is no effective use in opening an aquatic center that’s not usable.”
Why Aren’t the Pools Open? Construction Delays? Staffing?
It’s unclear why the pools aren’t open.
Hernandez said Nuñez told him on Monday the pool wasn’t open because the city is short-staffed due to budget cuts after he had planned to take his daughter to the Aquatic Center.
Lopez said she thinks the facility is not open yet because parts of the project aren’t finished.
In the Fall of 2024, the city awarded a construction contract for the over $29 million aquatic center including a 25-meter competition pool with spectator seating, a recreational pool with a water slide, an all electric building powered by solar panels, locker rooms, a community room and pool deck seating.
According to the city website, construction was expected to start in early 2025 and take up to 16 months.
This week, city officials said they had hoped to open the aquatic center with Gov. Gavin Newsom ahead of the summer but there were construction delays – leaving children in the neighborhood without access to a nearby pool in record-breaking temperatures.
Santa Ana is no stranger to delayed construction projects like Bristol St., which has been under construction for over 30 years, with multiple councils over the decades unable to claim they have finally finished the project – a trend that Nuñez himself previously publicly noted makes the city government look “incompetent.”
This also comes as the OC streetcar, which cost $150 million dollars a mile, is over 5 years late and has displaced and challenged the livelihoods of many downtown business owners–and is not currently picking up passengers.
A grand jury report also found no clear clientele for the OC streetcar.
Lopez said it was hard to hear that some residents felt the ribbon cutting was more about their elected officials.
“That is the difficult part, right? It started off as something really exciting, and obviously to hear that people were turned away, to hear that people came later in the day and couldn’t access it,” she said.
“It’s disappointing all around.”
Julie Leopo is Voice of OC’s director of photography. You can reach her at Jleopo@voiceofoc.org.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org.
