by David Mendez

The Shoreline City Council appears ready to add a measure to November’s General Election ballot in the hopes of building a new pool for the community, finally replacing the city’s long-demolished Shoreline Pool, which permanently closed during the height of the COVID pandemic.

To build the new pool, the city plans to ask voters to approve the creation of a metropolitan park district — a district that would then levy a new property tax increase to pay for the new pool facility.

Unlike the city’s last attempt at getting voters to buy-in — a 2019 bond measure that needed a 60% supermajority vote in favor — this would only need a simple majority vote to get the pool project rolling.

“It’s really exciting that we are on the precipice of asking our voters to say whether or not they do want to see a public pool back in the city,” said Councilmember Chris Roberts.

“I mean, there was a lot of disappointment when we had to close the Shoreline Pool. There was a lot of disappointment when the previous levy failed. But I think there's been a lot of, and continued to be, a lot of interest in this,” Roberts added.

The original Shoreline Pool opened in 1971, built using money generated by 1968’s King County Proposition 6 parks bond. That bond built more than 250 programs around the county, including construction of and improvements to a handful of parks and facilities in Shoreline.

For nearly 50 years, the pool was well-used by the Shoreline community, including everyday swimmers and local swim teams. The pool clearly showed its age as of the 2010s, faced with a series of closures for repairs, forcing the City of Shoreline to plan for a successor. In 2019, the city placed a parks and pool bond measure on that November’s ballot. That bond measure would have added a $0.056/$1,000 of annual appraised value to property taxes in the city — meaning that homes valued at $1 million would have $560 added to their annual property tax bill.

But, despite receiving 54% of the vote from Shoreline residents, the 2019 measure failed. Per the Washington State Constitution, municipal levies must win 60% of the total vote to pass.

The city scheduled the pool for closure in 2021. But the COVID pandemic explosion pushed forward the timeline, and when indoor activities were shut down, the pool was locked up for good. The pool facility at Shoreline Center was finally demolished in 2022.

The city began moving forward on a new pool in 2024, and after a series of community scoping and input sessions, came up with a preliminary design for a facility totaling about 48,000 square feet, expected to be built at the Shoreline Secure Storage facility at Midvale Avenue and North 178th Street. Per a city staff report, the design includes:

The one-time cost to build the facility is expected to total around $100 million, including construction, design and permitting and the cost of the land itself. Taking into account an expected $5 million King County Parks Levy Grant, Shoreline plans to be on the hook for $95 million to be paid for through construction bonds.

To raise that money, the city will likely ask voters to form a metropolitan park district, which is considered a “junior taxing district” — under the law, any taxing district outside the state, county, city, town, port public utility or county road district — which may then levy a maximum total property tax rate of $0.75 per $1,000 of assessed value.

But that’s only the maximum allowed under the law. Staff says it would recommend the city start with a tax rate of $0.55 per $1,000 of annual value — or about $550 in additional taxes on a $1 million home.

On Monday, the City Council seemed all but united in their interest to put the matter to the November ballot.

The only outlier appeared to be Councilmember Valerie Snider, who was concerned that homeowners would unjustly bear the burden of the new tax district plan. Under the Multifamily Tax Exemption program, property owners holding large, multiunit apartment complexes — such as those along the Interstate 5 corridor and Aurora Avenue — would be exempt from paying property tax on their buildings for the life of the exemption. (Though those property owners would still be taxed on the value of the land under their tax-exempt buildings.)

“I’m wondering if there is a way to balance it somehow, if we could marry up the exemption versus who is paying for the facilities — which is really, strictly, residential homeowners and a handful of large businesses and mostly small businesses,” Snider said.

Councilmember Keith Scully pushed back.

“I don’t want to even go down the road of trying to come up with some complicated way to somehow level things out with a particular class of persons, which are the single-family homeowners, for two reasons,” Scully said. “One is, it’s not fair. Two is, it is not true that those folks are paying a disproportionate share of the burden. This tax is imposed on all properties, not just on single-family residences.”

When reached later by The Osprey, Snider reiterated her concern that, as a result of the multifamily tax exemption, “this is introducing another levy borne by residential homeowners,”adding that she’s looking for “a way to spread the burden” of potential new taxes.

Not all residents are enthused about the pool facility, as currently designed. Shoreline resident Dan Adams told the council that he felt the amenities are targeted to “young children, teenagers and the elderly, while working-age adults are an afterthought.”

He’s advocating for a design that allows for quick transitions between a hot tub, diving board and a sauna. He believes that a hot tub, which is missing from the current design, would be well-appreciated by Shoreline residents, especially given that Lynnwood’s pool facility includes two tubs.

“Worker bees need this amenity,” Adams argued, saying that working adults would make great use of the tubs for decompressing sore, stressed muscles. “You need the support of households without children to pass the measure. As the plan stands today, unfortunately, I would have to reject it.”

When asked, city staff said that many pool facilities they’ve spoken with called their hydrotherapy pools the “most used body of water in their pool,” adding that maintenance costs for hot tubs are typically far greater than those of hydrotherapy pools.

The City Council will revisit the matter at the June 1 meeting, when it will vote whether or not to put the park district measure on the November ballot.

The Shoreline City Council issued a proclamation that May 2026 would be known as Jewish American Heritage Month, bringing aboard Jewish faith leaders from the community to celebrate.

“For a considerable amount of time since 1933, there has been some hatred toward our people, toward the Jewish people,” remarked Rabbi Sadya Davidoff. “Proclaiming Jewish American Heritage Month in Shoreline, as well as in other cities and counties, affirms and undoes a wrong done for many centuries, where government didn’t quite accept the Jewish community. Here in Shoreline, I’m proud and honored to affirm that the Jewish community feels right at home.”

“B'tzlem Elokim Bara Otam — every single human was created in the image of God,” Davidoff said, quoting and translating from the Book of Genesis within the Torah. “That includes people of all races and creeds and every single background and affiliation they could possibly come from.”

The city’s proclamation, he hoped, will “serve as an inspiration for other municipalities and cities and countries around the world to follow suit.”