The water was off-limits. But it certainly seemed somebody was all wet Tuesday afternoon at an Olympic-size swimming pool near downtown Los Angeles.
Was it Vilma Cortez, who was standing outside 3rd Street's new Miguel Contreras Learning Complex, demanding that its high school pool be open to neighborhood kids such as her own three children, who are whiling away the summer sitting in their nearby apartment?
Was it Los Angeles Unified School District administrators, who say the pool is already plenty used by students enrolled in campus summer school programs?
Maybe the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, which insists the school pool was never designed for public access and lacks shallow kiddie wading areas, adequate showers and locker facilities?
Or perhaps Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose staff has voiced concern that public access to the pool is impractical from both a safety and liability standpoint?
The $160-million campus, named after the late labor organizer, opened last year. Hailed as a model of how Los Angeles' current voter-financed school construction program can be state of the art, it has a lighted football field and baseball and softball fields, as well as the competition-size swimming pool and classroom space.
But the pool has never been open to the public. And its shimmering blue water has been particularly enticing to those living in nearby low-income apartments who glimpse it through the school fence on hot summer days.
Earlier in the summer, school officials indicated to neighborhood activists that they were negotiating with the city to operate and maintain the pool for after-school recreational swimming. But the issue of recruiting -- and paying -- lifeguards for the pool stalled that proposal.
On Tuesday residents of the neighborhood west of the downtown high-rise district said enough's enough.
"I'm frustrated. My three kids are sitting two blocks from this pool. They're hot -- it doesn't make sense to keep it closed all day long," said Jose Morales, a sidewalk vendor who hawks tamales and ears of corn around the city.
Morales disputed school officials' contention that the pool is being utilized this summer. "Nobody's using it," he complained.
No city or school officials were present at the protest, which drew about two dozen adults and children.
But from his office in the school district headquarters about two blocks from the Contreras Learning Center, Guy Mehula, chief facilities executive, said students indeed are using the pool.
