Despite years of fundraising, multiple discussions with Centralia city staff as to how to reopen the Veterans Memorial Pearl Street Pool and advocating for their cause at city council meetings, the efforts of the Save the Outdoor Pool (STOP) and Swim group never came to fruition.
Originally constructed in the 1950s as a World War II memorial, the Veterans Memorial Pearl Street Pool was owned and operated by the City of Centralia until the early 1980s when it first closed.
It reopened in 1984 due to the efforts of Friends in Need, a local nonprofit that operated the pool until 2008 when control was returned to the city. By 2011, the city closed the pool again, citing rising maintenance and staffing costs along with low attendance as the reasons.
Between 2011 and 2022, the STOP group raised approximately $120,000 and successfully applied for several grants, STOP President Phoebe Slusher and member Joyce Hoerling told The Chronicle.
That money has since gone to other causes, they said.
“We kept getting put off over years, and they told us we needed to apply for grants, so we did,” Hoerling said. “Then, in 2013, when we got the grants, the city said we didn’t have $100,000 to match. Phoebe and I went door to door and ended up getting the $100,000 to match, but then we didn’t have enough money to complete the project. So we got put off again.”
The STOP Group successfully got $400,000 in state funding to construct and open the splash pad in 2017 next to the pool, which they hoped would help bring more support to their efforts in getting the pool reopened.
While the splash pad was popular and is still used today, reopening the pool remained out of reach. In late 2022, a ballot initiative allowing voters to decide the pool’s ultimate fate was approved by the Centralia City Council.
But, with budgetary concerns looming and multiple Centralia School District levy initiative failures, the council decided the measure had no chance of being approved by voters. Instead of spending the money to put it on the ballot, the council voted to permanently close the pool in February 2023.
“What really got me was that seven people voted against the pool instead of letting the city vote,” Slusher said. “We had the money. One of the members of our group, Joyce Barnes, offered to pay the $10,000 or $15,000 it would have cost to put it on the ballot.”
She said in the 1950s Centralia citizens were originally given the choice to either have a pool or a community center, and the citizens voted for the pool.
“It was a beautiful summer, and hot, so I think the people would’ve probably voted for it, but even if they didn’t, we were ready to accept that,” Hoerling said.
Following the pool’s permanent closure, Slusher, Hoerling and the rest of the STOP group met several times throughout 2023 to discuss where the $120,000 they had raised should ultimately go.
It was donated to local organizations and nonprofits, they said, including:
• The American Legion Grant Hodge Post 17 in Centralia to help pay for building renovations including elevator repairs
• America’s Team Museum in Centralia, a small museum dedicated to preserving the history of veterans in the region
• Tenacity Outdoors, a veteran-owned and operated fishing guide service focused on providing other veterans with fishing trips
• The Western Washington Classic supreme female and bull jackpot youth show at the Southwest Washington Fair
• The Chehalis Moose Lodge’s children’s fund, as the local Moose Lodge had helped the STOP group organize and host fundraisers throughout their efforts
Getting back to the council’s February 2023 decision to permanently close the pool, both Slusher and Hoerling said they were told by multiple city staff members that a vote concerning the pool wasn’t going to take place during that meeting — only discussion surrounding what size of a pool and what accessories to construct with it should voters have approved the ballot initiative to reopen it.
The STOP group only wanted the pool restored to its original condition, which would have also been cheaper, group members said. Hoerling added the STOP group brought in engineers and consultants who evaluated the condition of the existing pool.
“They said the pool structure itself was in good shape, it just needed a new deck, a new heating system, and the building needed to be modernized a bit maybe,” Hoerling said. “All we wanted was a clean, safe, affordable place for kids to swim in the summer, and learn to swim.”
Despite estimates gathered from these engineers and consultants, Hoerling said city staff kept coming back with other, much higher estimates from different consultants.
“As time dragged on, prices got higher … We didn’t want the Taj Mahal or anything fancy like that, we just wanted a plain-jane pool,” Slusher added.
Following the Centralia City Council’s decision to permanently close the pool and rescind the ballot measure, the council elected to keep the splash pad operational while filling in the pool with dirt and eventually planning to construct the Veterans Memorial Community Park in January of 2024.
“I’m very on-board with keeping it a ‘veterans memorial.’ That is paramount in my mind as a veteran myself,” Centralia City Councilor Chris Brewer said during the January 2024 meeting. “... I don’t know if we can do anything, but I would like some consideration given to see what we can do for them to possibly find a new home somewhere because they are filling a really big critical community need right now.”
Members of both Grant Hodge Post 17 and the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2200, while disappointed in the decision to permanently close the pool, also spoke in favor of retaining the Veterans Memorial moniker.
Many Centralia residents reached out to the city with ideas of what to put there ranging from basketball and pickleball courts to features such as a rock climbing wall and kids zip-line.
However, with budgetary concerns still looming and city staff concentrating on completing other parks projects such as turfing fields and installing new lights at Fort Borst Park, no further actions have been taken since January surrounding the Veterans Memorial Community Park and it remains a fenced off, dirt-filled pool.
“These improvements are a high priority within the City’s Parks Plan,” interim Centralia City Manager Amy Buckler said in an email to The Chronicle. “With a big capital project like this, there are many elements to consider before construction can begin. This includes design, costs, available grants and other funding sources, parking and a maintenance plan, among other things. We are also considering how the City might be able to continue its partnership with the Hub City Bike Shop in a new location.”
Despite keeping the Veterans Memorial name, STOP group members feel it’s an empty gesture.
“The pool was the memorial. No matter how many flags or plaques are put at the park, they cannot honor the meaning of the living memorial the pool offered,” Slusher said.
Now permanently closed, the Veterans Memorial Pearl Street Pool is located on the southwest corner of the intersection at West Hanson and North Pearl streets in downtown Centralia.
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