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On March 3, community members stood before the Olympia City Council and asked a question nobody at Evergreen had bothered to ask: What if we just fixed it?

The Evergreen State College announced in early March that its campus pool would close at the end of June. The Washington State Department of Health had notified the college that the facility requires approximately $60,000 in immediate repairs to meet current health and safety standards. Rather than fund the repairs, the college chose to shut it down.

That decision landed at City Hall two weeks later.

What Was Said

Students, parents, coaches, and swim instructors used the public comment period to lay out what Evergreen’s administration apparently didn’t consider: this pool isn’t just a campus amenity. It’s regional infrastructure.

Ashton Myrick, a junior at Olympia High School, testified that the Evergreen pool is the only facility in the area with adequate space for competitive teams and a diving board. Crystal Smith pointed out that the closure would leave multiple school swim programs scrambling for pool time in a county that’s already undersupplied.

The public health data is stark. Professional swim instruction reduces drowning risk by 88% for children ages 1–4 and 64% for older children. In households earning under $50,000, 79% of children have few or no swimming skills. Closing this pool doesn’t just inconvenience athletes. It removes a safety resource from the families least able to find alternatives.

Brent Barnes proposed what should have been obvious from the start: a city-college partnership to cover operational costs. The Olympia School District already pays roughly $70,000 annually for pool access. The repair bill is $60,000. These are not large numbers by any institutional standard.

What the City Said Back

City Manager Jay Burney’s response was revealing: “We’re just learning about this with the community.”

Think about what that means. Evergreen made a decision that eliminates the only public-scale pool facility serving Olympia’s school district, and the city government found out the same way everyone else did — after the fact. There was no intergovernmental consultation. No joint analysis. No conversation about shared costs or regional impact.

Burney committed to contacting Evergreen’s president to clarify the financial details and present options to the council. That’s a start. But it’s also an admission that the most basic coordination between a public college and its host city didn’t happen.

The State Budget Makes This Worse

Here’s what wasn’t discussed at the council meeting, because almost nobody is connecting these dots: the Washington State Legislature just enacted cuts exceeding $400 million to public higher education operating budgets. Governor Ferguson is closing a $2.3 billion budget gap. Regional universities are absorbing 1.5% across-the-board cuts. Western Washington University’s state funding ratio just dropped from 70/30 to 51/49, meaning students are now covering nearly half the cost through tuition.

The Senate budget includes a provision granting colleges increased tuition authority to offset these cuts. Translation: your tuition is going up to pay for the state’s shortfall.

Evergreen, which we documented in The Enrollment Paradox, is in the bizarre position of growing enrollment while its budget gets worse. The pool closure isn’t an isolated facilities decision. It’s the visible edge of a structural problem: the state is defunding public higher education while telling colleges to figure it out.

A college that can’t find $60,000 for a pool repair while enrolling 2,500 students is a college whose funding model is broken. The state broke it.

The $30 Million Question

There’s a previous feasibility study floating around that estimated the cost of a new regional aquatic center at approximately $30 million. That number came up in the context of the council discussion. It’s worth noting the contrast: $60,000 to repair the pool we have, or $30 million to build a replacement after we close it.

If the pool closes in June and the community decides two years later that it needs an aquatic facility, the price tag won’t be $60,000. It’ll be eight figures. This is how deferred maintenance becomes generational cost.

What to Watch

The Parks & Recreation Advisory Committee meets March 19 at 6:00 PM. If the pool closure comes up in any city advisory body, this is the most likely venue. The next regular City Council session is March 24 — by which point Burney should have spoken with Evergreen’s president.

The Board of Trustees has not posted its next meeting date. We’re monitoring.

What You Can Do

• Attend the March 24 City Council meeting (6:00 PM, Council Chambers) or register for Zoom by 4:30. Use public comment to ask what came of the city manager’s conversation with Evergreen.
• Contact City Manager Jay Burney’s office and ask for a timeline on the city-college partnership proposal. Don’t let “we’re looking into it” become “we looked into it and did nothing.”
• Contact the Evergreen Board of Trustees directly. Ask when the next public meeting is. Ask why a $60,000 repair wasn’t presented as an option alongside closure.
• Ask your state legislators what “increased tuition authority” means for students at Evergreen specifically. Make them say the number.

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