Council OKs repairs to Davan pool, library boiler.

WESTBROOK – The Davan Swimming Pool at the former Wescott Junior High School will likely be shut down for repairs later this month.

In Monday’s first of two required readings, the Westbrook City Council in a 6-0 vote (Dotty Aube absent) favored spending $49,740 for pool repairs to be performed by Knowles Industrial Services Corp. in Gorham.

A resident, Marian Broaddus, who said she was the first person to use the pool when it opened, spoke in favor of the pool repairs.

“It’s so well used and people from out of town come, it’s amazing,” Broaddus told the City Council.

City Councilor Paul Emery said the pool is one of the many resources he loves in the city.

“The pool is wonderful,” Emery said.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said that damage at the pool was identified a year ago. The city hired S.W. Cole Engineering to assess condition of the pool and develop a repair program.

While some of the damage is cosmetic, there is deterioration to concrete and corrosion of the steel reinforcement bars and supports.

“It looked ugly and scary,” Bryant said Monday, but the city was able to keep the pool open.

But, Bryant said, the pool would be closed in late August for up to six weeks to complete the work.

In other action, councilors voted 5-1 (Victor Chau opposed) to spend up to $4,000 if a possible historic preservation review would be required for a heating system replacement at Walker Memorial Library.

The city has obtained an $85,000 energy efficiency grant to replace the boiler and steam radiator heating system at the library.

The library has been cited as needing extensive repairs – $1 million or more – and the city has yet to decide on the library’s future.

Mayor Colleen Hilton earlier this year proposed the idea of looking at purchasing the nearby Warren library building as a way to preserve the city’s library services in a time of fiscal constraints.

The Warren building had housed a private library for more than 130 years before closing in 2009. The 14,500-square-foot structure had been renovated before its closure.

The 17,000-square-foot Walker library is located less than a mile from the Warren library. The historic Queen Anne-style building was donated to the city by local businessman Joseph Walker Jr. in 1894.

The Walker board has urged the city to make the repairs, funding them over two or three years.

City Councilor John O”Hara said the future of the library would be debated in the next six months.

The U.S. Department of the Interior has named the Walker library to its National Register of Historic Places. O’Hara called the building one of the “most eye appealing” buildings in the community.

“We won’t let that building go into disrepair,” O’Hara said in the meeting.

Hilton said after the meeting Monday that information is still being gathered “to explore all possibilities.”

“I don’t have a recommendation yet,” Hilton said.

In another development at Walker Memorial Library, Hilton said in her mayor’s message that Mike Miles, who is moving to Portland, has resigned from the library’s Board of Regents. Miles has been chairman of the board.

The City Council also, in a first of two readings, approved 6-0 amending an ordinance to allow ice cream trucks to peddle in Riverbank Park. No one from the public spoke.

City Clerk Lynda Adams said after the meeting the change would allow ice cream truck vendors and pushcarts in the park. The license fee at Riverbank is $125. Adams said the ice cream trucks would likely enter the park from Dunn Street.