Dear Editor:
The following is a letter to Mayor Glenn Cunningham regarding the Pershing Field Pool and other youth issues:
I am writing to convey to you my experiences of the recent past which I hope will illustrate the sad state of affairs in Jersey City Heights. In addition to the lack of educational and recreational pursuits for children (i.e. police routinely called to the Heights Branch Library for rowdiness and violence against security guards and staff), roaming pit bulls whose owners are not punished and a general lack of services one would expect for city taxes, the policy at the Pershing Field Public Swimming Pool seems like another rough reality of the neighborhood.
I have signed my 5-year-old son for swimming lessons at the Pershing Field Pool, starting Sunday, January 12 at 11:00 a.m. I had been told that my son would have to get dressed by himself in the men’s locker room (boys over 3 years are not allowed in the womens locker room). This was not acceptable to me, so I dressed my son in swim trunks under his clothes so that he wouldn’t have to be in that precarious situation.
About half way through the lesson, my son’s floatation device slipped away from him. My son, standing on his tippy toes, could not keep his nose above the water. The lifeguard was not looking at the pool or the children for about the 10 seconds that this was happening. I ran over and the life guard saw him and pulled him up. My lesson was not to be far or take my eyes off of him at the pool.
My son was coaxed back into the water by some other very attentive, caring life guards and he eventually became less afraid than the incident had left him. At the end of the lesson, I dried my son, had the towel around him while I changed him quickly to dry clothes pool side.
As we were getting ready to leave a woman who had worked at the pool entrance desk told me that I shouldn’t bring my son to lessons anymore if he wasn’t ready get changed by himself in the men’s locker room, pool policy. Later, on the phone with a supervisor, I was told again of their policy.
Until he can swim, I will not let him out of my sight in the pool. Just the same, until he can defend himself against a predator, I will not let him out of my sight in a men’s locker room. Would any parent let their small boy go into a public restroom alone?
Other public pools do not have such an archaic policy (Bayonne and Hoboken YMCA’s etc.). I hope that as you must realize that the Jersey City public servants at Pershing Field Pool cannot guarantee the safety of children in their care, you cannot prohibit their parents from doing so. The Pershing Field Recreational Complex is the one positive outlet in this underserved neighborhood, does its harsh policy have to further endanger the future of its youth?
I hope I can count on your attention to this and other serious problems afflicting the youth of our city.
P. Doyle