A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness.
First let’s stipulate that a community needs a recreational venue like an aquatic center; in Lompoc the city’s aquatic center currently serves about 10,000 users each month.
The second stipulation is that the government, when providing public projects at any level, is prone to make serious errors in judgment that wind up costing taxpayers in the form of excessive operation and maintenance costs. And when politicians with no experience in how projects are built and/or are unable to look beyond the immediate ribbon cutting involve themselves in engineering design decisions, it just gets worse.
The Lompoc Aquatic Center is a perfect example of this phenomena and has become a continuing and very costly maintenance headache for the city of Lompoc. Let’s review how this project grew from a need to repair or replace the old pool in front of City Hall into a money pit hidden from public view.
The reason it needed to be replaced was that over the life of the pool, unabated corrosion had taken its toll on the piping and major metal structural members holding the roof up. So the City Council of the time was fully aware that corrosion was a major maintenance issue for indoor, heated pools.
They decided to replace it, but they chose a location that is on an out-of-the-way parcel of land behind a multi-story shopping center and set back 350 feet from the nearest roadway. It is totally hidden from public view, and unless you know where it is you will have a hard time finding it.
I managed to reconstruct a cost history of the aquatic center project, one that would offer the people of Lompoc a world-class recreational venue. To be sure, the well-hidden facility is superior, but whether the initial construction costs associated with this project equaled what was promised to property owners when they approved the assessment or that the city could afford to maintain is another matter.
On May 21, 2002, the City Council approved a ballot proposal to go to property owners to establish an assessment for the “Lompoc Park Maintenance and City Pool District #2002-1.” The engineers report suggested that the “estimated cost of the Family Aquatics and Swim Center is $7.8 million.” Voters approved it with an overwhelming vote of support.
Then the problems began. The first cost escalation was just two years later in June 2004 when the Lompoc City Council authorized additional funding “to balance the budget for the projected $10.4 million necessary to construct the new aquatic center.” The report also said, “The current projected cost estimate for [pool] construction is $9,292,214 compared to an estimate of $7,521,599 in October 2003.”
And, in the 20 years since the assessment that was originally approved by property owners, it has nearly doubled and continues to rise every year.
The cost escalation wasn’t over yet as the council kept tinkering with the design. Somewhere between August 2004 and the completion of the pool in late 2005, the final cost rose again to $12.8 million; at the time the mayor claimed it was “under budget.” But was it? That’s an eye-popping 60 percent more than the original project estimate approved by voters!
During the construction phase, as it became evident that costs were still escalating, the council decided to cut out a dehumidifier system from the project to “save money.” This proved to be another costly mistake; apparently, they didn’t learn anything from how badly the old pool had suffered from corrosion.
In November of 2009, the council was informed that the aquatic center, just opened in 2006, was beginning to show some serious signs of corrosion, a result of their earlier poor decision making. And in August 2010 they approved a $1.15 million project to install the dehumidifier that an earlier council had removed from the original construction.
The design of this facility includes systems and components that need constant upgrades and/or replacements. Most recently, the staff reported on April 5 that the manufacturer recommends that all four dehumidification units be replaced every 10 years; the manufacturer’s recommended life span on the retractable roof ceiling panels and motor track are 10 years; and therapy pool heaters have a manufacturer lifespan of six to eight years.
To compound this comedy of errors, the staff says, “Because historically the city has not had sufficient revenue sources in the general fund to fund reserves for the LAC [Lompoc Aquatic Center] capital replacements, there are no funds specifically set aside to replace these equipment components that have a finite lifespan.” Any competent homeowners association or property management firm knows that you must maintain maintenance reserves to amortize projects like this with so many components with a short shelf life.
Three councilmembers, Gilda Cordova, Dirk Starbuck, and Victor Vega, seemed frustrated by the lack of planning. City Manager Dean Albro agreed, “The past practice of the city of Lompoc has been very reactive. We wait for something to break, then we find the money to fix it. The general fund should be run like a utility where we do set money aside.”
But will the council eventually agree to do what most homeowners association groups do and put money aside for future facility repairs or continue relying on emergency funding requests?
On April 5, the council agreed to a request for additional “appropriations of $983,288 for the aquatic center roof repair, pool heaters, and dehumidification system replacement project.” All of this comes from the general fund. I am guessing that since the estimates were a couple of months old that these costs will increase to well over $1 million due to inflation.
Clearly this recreational facility would qualify as a “white elephant” by anyone’s definition.
Ron Fink writes to the Sun from Lompoc. Send a letter for publication to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 21-28, 2022.
