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The season's grand opening of Prospect Pool on Saturday drew 674 people -- including 419 children, according to city officials.
"I think that's a record for opening day," said Councilman Ron Beatty, a leader in the city's takeover this season from Central Blair Recreation & Park Commission, in hopes of showing there's enough interest to justify renovating or replacing the pool. "It couldn't have gone any better."
The big splash that the city's pool committee had planned for months was "more than successful," said committee member and local labor leader Bob Kutz. "It makes you feel good about Altoona for a change," Kutz added.
Lots of attendees walked to the pool for the seven-hour opening session, Kutz said, a phenomenon that bolsters the belief that the pool can once again be a draw and a benefit for the working class neighborhood of Dutch Hill.
That included parents towing their kids in wagons, Kutz said.
"It was quite a sight," he said.
"It was just a big party," Beatty stated.
The lifeguards and the pool's management team performed well, according to Beatty.
There were a few issues, including a "little disagreement" between two individuals, just one food truck at first and "a little snafu with pool passes," Beatty said.
But security handled the disagreement quickly; additional food trucks arrived; and pool passes are available online -- although buyers for now need to go to City Hall for their ID pictures, Beatty said.
Equipment should soon be working that will enable full passes to be created at Prospect itself, Beatty said.
Saturday's event was free, which helped goose the attendance, but patronage throughout the summer should be up from low-water marks in recent years, based on the pool's being managed and marketed "properly," according to Councilman Dave Ellis, a committee member.
The big opening was an initial culmination of "community effort" that included citizen participation on the committee, volunteers for a recent cleanup day, efforts by the Public Works Department, coordination with contractors to ensure the pools plumbing and electrical systems were OK, patching and painting on the pool itself and concession stand improvements with help from local businesses, Ellis said.
People appreciate the effort, based on the texts, emails and phone calls he's received and conversations with people on the street, Ellis said.
In recent years, there were pessimistic conversations at the Rec Commission about how expensive repairs for the pool would be, Ellis said.
When the city received $39.6 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, that conversation shifted to bad behavior in recent years by middle-school-age pool patrons and others, he said.
Where lots of people gather, there's always "potential for misbehavior," Ellis said.
When he was growing up in Juniata, there were occasional fights and "screaming matches" at Memorial Pool there, he said.
The key to dealing with that is control, he said.
"Keep those to minor skirmishes," he said. "(And) we (will) have trained people (at Prospect) to make sure those kinds of things are addressed."
It's one of the city's responsibilities to provide recreation "to all segments of the community" -- including neighborhoods like Dutch Hill, Ellis said.
"One of the most important things we have to provide," he said, "positive things for our children to do."
Ellis was a city police officer from 1982 to 1990, before a career in the state Attorney General's Office and spent lots of time in the zone that includes Dutch Hill, he said.
"It's probably safer and calmer today" than it was then, although there are probably more examples now of individual blighted houses -- even as there are also plenty of examples of people making significant investments in their homes, he said.
Blight is an issue the city has been working on and is "obviously a challenge," Ellis said.
Still, overall, Altoona is in far better condition than virtually all of the many Western Pennsylvania towns in which he conducted operations as part of the AG's office -- including Johnstown, Ellis said.
Altoona has problems, but not in "epidemic proportions," he stated.
It's been that way because the community at large "calls that stuff out" and doesn't "tolerate it," he said.
The city's attempt this season at rejuvenating Prospect is intended to "gauge interest" in the facility, Beatty said.
If there's good attendance and the pool breaks even or comes close to that, there can be "a future," with some sort of remodeling and possibly a spray park, Beatty said.
Based on that attendance, the city will "evaluate what to do," he said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.