Frankfort’s mayor has announced changes to the city’s swimming pool that he hopes will make it safer when it reopens next summer.
In a press release Monday, Chris McBarnes laid out a three-pronged safety plan instigated by the death of a 15-year old swimmer last month.
Topping the mayor’s priorities is the creation of a written safety plan for the pool which will replace oral rules taught to lifeguards upon their hiring.
"Our emergency action plan was always iterated verbally to our lifeguards in terms of a water rescue," the mayor says. "What I want to see out of water personnel now is a written set of procedures that not only deal with a drowning, but any seizure victims at our pool; an individual that would go into diabetic shock.”
The mayor also wants pool staff to better monitor chlorine levels and air and water temperatures to ensure the pool does not become, in his words, “murky” like it was on the afternoon Adrian Alanis was pulled, unresponsive, from the water.
McBarnes says despite those deficiencies in the city’s oversight of the pool, he hasn’t heard that the boy’s family plans any legal action against the city.
“They may decide to move forward with that, I can’t answer that question. But in the conversations I’ve had with them, they haven’t personally spoken with me about that,” McBarnes says.
McBarnes closed the city pool the day after Alanis drowned, and it won’t reopen until next June, giving the city about ten months to draw up its next safety protocols.
