Michelle Mak says she’s always been a Shark. She wasn’t born one, but the Cascade High School sophomore has been a member of the Everett Parks Sharks swim team for 10 of her 16 years.
For a teenager, a decade surely seems like always.
"I want to keep this team," said Mak, also a lifeguard at the Forest Park Swim Center.
That sentiment was echoed over and over last week by swimmers and parents gathered for team practice at the Everett pool.
Some had seen an article in Wednesday’s Herald with the headline "Severity of city cuts emerging." Others heard by word of mouth that the Everett parks swim team was among program cuts and layoffs announced by Mayor Ray Stephanson.
The cuts — coming despite the city’s $24 million surplus — are intended to close a gap between revenues and expenses and trim $3.5 million from the 2004 budget.
"I have an 11-year-old who plans to swim with the Sharks until high school, then swim for Everett High. She wants to get a swimming scholarship for college," said Gina Wilson of Everett, whose daughter, Elaynee, has been on the team for four years. "I don’t know how to tell her that her dream has a kink in it."
"I’m upset," Elaynee said. "Swimming is my life."
There are private clubs, "but those are a lot more money," Wilson said. "We’re a one-income family. If we’re talking double the price, can we afford that?"
Members of the Sharks, a team of about 80 swimmers, pay participation fees and buy their own suits. They pay their own annual dues to be sanctioned by USA Swimming, which maintains statistics used in qualifying swimmers for the Olympics.
Depending on age and level, fees range from $36 to $72 for six-week sessions.
Figuring the Sharks bring in thousands of dollars to the city, some parents don’t understand how cutting the program would save money.
Lori Cummings, assistant director of the Everett Parks and Recreation Department, said the Sharks aren’t self-supporting.
"The average cost the kids pay is about $630 a year," she said. "The actual average cost annually per child is about $1,700."
Cummings said the jobs of two out of five full-time aquatics employees have been eliminated, although Sharks coach Denise McCoy is still employed as full-time aquatics manager at the Forest Park pool.
"We had to think about our real core services in aquatics, and prioritize things like lifeguarding and entry-level learn-to-swim," Cummings said. "The whole decision was based on budget reductions.
"It’s not our intent to disband the team. It’s a fabulous program," she added.
Cummings said the city has been in contact with the YMCA of Snohomish County to discuss keeping the team together.
Whatever happens will be a loss of a tradition dating to 1990, when the team started as the Forest Park Sharks.
"I have five kids on the team, ages 16 to 7," Tiffany Reid of Lake Stevens said. "They’ve grown up here. They don’t know any different."
Dr. Sue Carter, an Everett Clinic physician, fears the loss of the program as a community member, as a doctor and as the mother of 13-year-old Sarah, who swims for the Sharks.
"Not every kid is cut out for soccer," she said.
Debbie Wilson, whose 14-year-old son, Ryan, is a Shark, hates to see the city cut its swim team as families struggle with the obesity problem.
"My child swims three to four times a week. He’s not sitting around," the Everett woman said.
"It’s a health issue, it’s a quality-of-life issue, it’s so many things," said Val Smith, whose 13-year-old is on the team. "Our child is excelling in school, socially, in swimming. Ripping something like this out from underneath them is not a small thing."
For these families, it’s a huge thing.
Cuts announced by the mayor go to the heart of what makes this a great place to live. From the Everett Senior Center to the Everett Public Library, these programs matter.
Stephanson has said if Tim Eyman is successful with Initiative 864, which would require a 25 percent cut in property taxes, greater cuts would be needed. Yet, Eyman’s faithful — I only hope those swimmers’ families aren’t among them — rant about government waste.
It takes money to fund a fine community.
At the pool Wednesday was Ed Schulz, 51, of Everett, a daily swimmer. He has no children on the Sharks team.
"I see the way they behave with their coach and interact with adults and each other. I’m impressed to see 7-year-olds pound out 3,000 yards," Schulz said. "I cannot believe they’d even consider cutting it. This program is pure gold."
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com
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