New boiler in store for Wallace pool

WALLACE — The Wallace City Council voted in favor of pursuing additional funds from the Innovia Endowment Fund to replace the boiler at the Wallace Swimming Pool.

Councilwoman Michele Bisconer reported to Wallace Mayor Lynn Mogensen that the boiler went kaput recently, but that isn’t the real tragedy here, that lies with the use they actually got out of it.

Bisconer reported that the boiler was purchased brand new two or three years before 2017 when the pool began experiencing the issues that forced its closure for five years.

So, with the two — possibly three years of use, then sitting derelict without any sort of regular maintenance, it worked for the abbreviated season last year and now needs replacing.

Clocking in at $14,000, buying a new boiler isn’t cheap, and for the city, which has spent more than a million dollars to repair and rebuild its historic swimming pool, making sure that the pool is open to the public is a top priority.

As it stands right now, the city could request and get $2,500 from Innovia from the endowment fund that they operate for the city — that amount could be bumped up to anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000 in June.

But that would require them to wait until June to make a decision — which is a little late in the year to begin repairing a pool that they want to be opened during the summer months.

“We would need that money before then,” Mogensen said. “We could take it out of our funding and then when Innovia gets us that (additional) money we could replace it, but we need to get the ball rolling.”

The additional money for the boiler would come from the city’s annual maintenance budget for the pool — which could likely cover the costs of the boiler entirely, but Mogensen doesn’t want to risk depleting that fund only to see another issue arise and there not be money immediately available to fix it.

Councilman Elmer Mattila concurred with Mogensen’s urgency, as did the rest of the council when they unanimously passed a motion to pursue the additional funding.

“I know that we want the pool to be opened as soon as possible,” he said.

The Innovia Endowment Fund is a private fund that is managed by the Innovia Foundation in Spokane.

Several donations to the Wallace Swimming Pool were made to the endowment fund — and then Innovia manages the fund by only allowing certain amounts to be withdrawn from it each year.

The Innovia Endowment Fund is still able to receive donations by visiting its website at www.innovia.org.