It takes a really serious issue to prompt little kids to grab placards and protest in public, chanting their discontent.
But on a sticky, hot afternoon Monday, with no pool to splash around in, children attending a summer camp at the St. Frances Academy Community Center in East Baltimore had all the motivation they needed. The kids, some as young as eight, gathered for their protest at Ambrose Kennedy, one of 13 so-called walk-to pools in the city that will remain closed until July 9 because of budgetary constraints. Most of the other city pools opened for business, with much fanfare, on Saturday, and two wading pools opened on Monday.
"I don't think it's very fair," said Nigel Gustave, 12, as he stood outside the Ambrose Kennedy pool's black iron fence. "Now that it's closed, I can't go to it."
Nigel pointed to a tent-like structure and a wooden deck being built next to the pool at a cost of $16,000 — money donated by Comcast. "They're building that for the pool," he said. "I don't know why they don't just open it."
The city's Department of Recreation and Parks, whose website home page features a photograph of a large pool with dozens of kids in it, says the staggered openings were carefully planned. "This schedule was part of our budget preparation back in the fall," said Bill Tyler, chief of the Bureau of Recreation. "We're maximizing our resources so that we can keep some pools open all summer."
Tyler was referring to the nine large "park" pools, such as Cherry Hill Splash, Roosevelt and Clifton, which are scheduled to operate until Sept. 5. But the neighborhood "walk-to" pools, which include not only Ambrose Kennedy but C.C. Jackson, Central Rosemont, City Springs, Coldstream and others, are set to lock their gates Aug. 21.
Without additional resources or corporate donations such as the ones that bailed out the city pools last summer, Tyler said, his department has no choice but to stick to the abridged schedule for the smaller pools.
That explanation did nothing to mollify the children at Ambrose Kennedy, some of whom had painted elaborate — if mildly worded — placards to display their displeasure. One, drawn by 8-year-old Krystal Flagg, said, "H2O is the way to go."
"I'm very sad because I like to hang out with my friends in the summertime in the pool," said Kiara Preston, 12.
Parents too were upset, not least because the public pools provide an easy distraction for young people who might otherwise seek more troublesome diversions. "It keeps the children from getting into mischievous things," said Lisa McIntyre, who has a 14-year-old son, Kevin. "They're with their buddies. You feel safer. If the pool's closed, you go, 'I know he's not at the pool — I wonder where he's at?' "
McIntyre, who lives nearby said she had seen the crowd outside the pool Monday in the Johnston Square neighborhood and assumed that it had opened after all.
"I was going to tell my son to come down," she said, "but I looked closer and there was no water in there."
Ralph E. Moore Jr., director of the St. Frances Academy Community Center and one of the protest's organizers, said he was told by city officials that it would cost $42,000 to operate all 13 "walk-to" pools for two weeks, until July 9, their scheduled opening date. "I don't know," Moore said. "It doesn't seem like an incredible amount of money."
nick.madigan@baltsun.com