JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Half the public swimming pools in Jacksonville are still closed.
The city says they’re working on maintenance and staffing issues, which has contributed to them being closed.
First Coast News is reporting 17 of the 33 public pools are closed.
“Those are the things that frustrate people, right?” said Mayor Elect Donna Deegan.
“When they see that you can’t open public swimming pools but you can look at doing all these other things and that seems to be a relatively small thing to be able to do for the people in this community during the summer,” said Deegan.
Deegan discussed the pools in a Wednesday press conference.
Some pools are algae infested and some don’t have lifeguards and some have multiple issues, according to the City of Jacksonville.
Some grandparents are worried about limited summer activities and want the pools open for everyone.
“It should be a timeline given of when they are going to have those pools fixed and ready for kids for the summer and it should have already been done knowing that summer was coming up so that’s no excuse,” said a concerned neighbor.
First Coast News reached out to two city council members about the closures and asked when the pools will reopen.
Councilman Reggie Gaffney Jr. leads District 7 and he says, “It was just brought to my attention this week and I’m in the process of getting with the mayor’s administration, as well as the department of parks and rec to see how we can resolve the issue.”
A city spokesperson says the Woodland Acres pool should be open again this weekend, which council woman Ju’coby Pittman says they’ve worked hard to do.
“I hope they just fix them and give the kids something to do to keep them out of trouble,” said a concerned citizen.
First Coast News requested information about when all of the pools will reopen and the city spokesperson has not responded to that question yet.