Getting the pool re-opened at Northridge Park was no minor goal to Councilman Greig Smith. Smith said that when he was elected to office in 2003—at which point the pool had been closed for four years—it was at the top of his to-do list.

“It was like a sore thumb. It stuck out,” Smith said. “During the 2002 Valley secession movement and election, this was a focal point of the failures of the City. It had been closed for three years and (people) said, ‘see? The City can’t do anything right. They can’t even fix a pool.’”

With dozens of children enduring a series of speeches while waiting anxiously to jump in and get a preview of one of two pools on June 8 at Northridge Park, Smith had a chance to put a giant check mark on that to-do list at the grand opening.

The project cost about $6 million and was started with a groundbreaking in February 2006. One pool is 3,400 square feet and is 3 feet to 10 feet deep. The other is 2,600 square feet, geared more toward kids and has easy access for people with disabilites. The smaller of the two pools includes the slide.

Getting the first ride down the slide was Megan Hawthorne, 16, of Granada Hills who just finished her sophomore year at Chaminade. Hawthorne wrapped up individual wins at the CIF-Southern Section swimming championships in May in the 200 individual medley and the 500 freestyle and is expected to compete in the upcoming Olympic trials. She was the first one in the pool, and Smith, tie and button up shirt and all, jumped in after.

“When I took office I said, yeah, this is a failure of one the City government and two, it was a statement to the Valley that you don’t get your fair share of services,” Smith said. “So I wanted to one answer those charges. One, that we could fix things and two, that the Valley could get it’s fair share.”

The pool suffered severe damage in the 1994 Northridge Earthquake, but no one really knew the extent until 1999. They immediately closed the pool that year after finding leaks and a large hollow area underneath the pool that Smith said was six feet deep.

“There was nothing holding it in there but the cement around the edges,” Smith said.

The pool officially opened to the public on June 21, when the other L.A. City pools opened for the summer season.

Send your community’s news to Managing Editor Amanda Branam at abranam@thesfv.com or call (818) 435-4091.