WEIRTON — The Weirton Board of Parks will sponsor a customer appreciation day to close the summer swimming season at Starvaggi Memorial Pool on Sunday.
All swimmers will be admitted free of charge on Sunday and there will also be Pittsburgh Pirates, Pittsburgh Steelers and Washington Wild Things ticket giveaways.
“We’ve had a pretty rough pool season and our faithful patrons have lived through it with us,” Park Board Executive Director Coty Shingle said. “With the filter room flooding we experienced this summer, we had to be closed on some prime days for swimming. We can’t go back in time, so we just wanted to try to give a little back.”
The Park Board will also offer 2018 membership holders a 10 percent discount toward memberships for the 2019 pool season.
“Our mission is to provide quality recreation opportunities to all people,” Shingle said. “When we aren’t able to do that — whatever the reason — we try to make it right. We want our members to know their loyalty is important to us and this is just a small reward for their faithful support.”
The Park Board has been plagued by filter room flooding problems all season long at Starvaggi Pool. The damage caused by the flooding has resulted in nine days of closure at the pool. The filter room first flooding during pre-season work, then again on June 10. The Starvaggi filter room has four more times since then, but the Park Board maintenance staff has been able to avoid any further closures.
Park Board staff is working with city officials to find a solution for the flooding problem.
In the meantime, Shingle says he just wants to see people having fun at Starvaggi while they can.
“Hopefully we’ll get a lot of patrons out here on Sunday as we celebrate the end of the season,” Shingle said. “We just want to end it right with everybody having fun in the sun, like they’re supposed to.”
The ticket giveaways will be conducted by blind ticket drawings. Each adult patron entering Starvaggi Pool on Sunday will receive a ticket worth one chance to be chosen to win event tickets. Winners must be present.
