North Hempstead to replace kiddie pool liner at Clinton G. Martin Park

Every summer, North Hempstead Town officials said, the cycle is the same: The kiddie pool at Clinton G. Martin Park leaks. It gets sealed. And then it leaks again. 

But this summer will be different. The town will spend $900,000 to install a new liner, part of a series of capital improvements that will be made to the community gathering space in New Hyde Park.

North Hempstead will borrow $1.31 million for the upgrades.

Clinton G. Martin Park is open to residents of the New Hyde Park Special Park District and also includes a full-size pool, a waterslide, a community center, two pickleball courts and five tennis courts.

The improvements will include converting two tennis courts into four pickleball courts ($250,000) and installing a new waste line ($160,000). 

"If we're going to be conscientious and take care of our water, like we do in so many ways throughout the town, we have got to repair this," Supervisor Jennifer DeSena said in an interview. "This is a major investment, but it has to be done."

The town purchased the site of the pool facility in 1962 from farmer Fred Schumacher Jr., Newsday previously reported. It underwent renovations in the 1980s, but by the mid-2010s, it became clear more improvements were needed. 

The town approved a $21 million renovation of the park's pool facility in 2017. It reopened the following summer with the new kiddie pool, but almost immediately there were problems, Kelly Gillen, the town's parks and recreation commissioner, said during a recent public hearing.

"It's been leaking since then," Gillen said during the Feb. 10 hearing. She added the town has "invested thousands of dollars in doing repairs."

The town spends about $17,000 every year patching the leaks, Gillen said, which leads to a higher water bill. Gillen said two engineers recommended the new liner. 

"Oftentimes the staff will come in, and the pool has drained halfway, and they have to fill the pool in the morning," she said. "The pool opened with a lot of issues, and we've been doing our best to maintain them, but we're at the point where we really need to think of a more permanent solution."

Dennis Walsh, a town council member, said during the hearing it was "about time we spent some money to fix it permanently." 

"It's a never-ending, bleeding problem," he said.

The town recently invested in a series of park upgrades. Last year, it reopened the dog park at Michael J. Tully Park after a $52,114 expansion funded through federal pandemic aid.

DeSena said she hopes the kiddie pool will be ready for summer.

"After this cold weather, picturing a pool ... seems like a tropical vacation," DeSena said. "When our parks are fully open in the summer, it's really the height of all that the town offers." 

The new waste line is important, Gillen said, because the current iteration has led to "major backups, and they are showing up in the playground and bocce court area."

By Joshua Needelman

joshua.needelman@newsday.com

Joshua Needelman covers the Town of North Hempstead for Newsday. A Long Island native and University of Maryland graduate, his work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.