{"id":298785,"date":"2026-05-04T06:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298785\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T06:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:04:09","slug":"sacramentos-southside-park-pool-faces-reduced-hours-amid-citys-66-million-deficit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/298785\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento&#8217;s Southside Park pool faces reduced hours amid city&#8217;s $66 million deficit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Sacramento City Council will begin the difficult budget cut debate to solve the city&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/sacramento\/news\/sacramento-leaders-begin-process-to-close-budget-gap\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">$66 million deficit<\/a> this week, including 46 proposed layoffs.<\/p>\n<p>It also includes cutting neighborhood pool operations during Sacramento&#8217;s hot summer months. For the Southside Park neighborhood, those cuts sting and now have them seeking their own funds to pay for their own lifeguards.<\/p>\n<p>Marni Leger is the Southside Park neighborhood association president who watched her neighborhood pool sit empty for three years over the city hall&#8217;s deferred maintenance.<\/p>\n<p>It finally reopened last summer, but now budget cuts could keep it closed again for four days a week, while three other neighborhood pools \u2014 Clunie, North Natomas, and Meadowview \u2014 could be open twice as many days.<\/p>\n<p>Leger said Sacramento&#8217;s aquatics director told her the decision was based on pass use.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And I said, &#8216;How is that fair?&#8217; Three out of the four past years, Southside pool has been closed. So, how do we get the numbers to compete in this?&#8221; Leger said.<\/p>\n<p>Southside pool is the only pool in the central city and serves a low-income neighborhood.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the fairness here? We&#8217;ve struggled to get this pool opened and funded,&#8221; Leger said.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Leger is working on a lifeline to fund the Southside pool lifeguards.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have applied for a nonprofit to help get this pool funded,&#8221; Leger said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know, we&#8217;re shooting for if we can get $25,000. Will that make a difference to this city?&#8221; Leger said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just been a struggle and it just seems like why? It&#8217;s always a struggle, spread the wealth a little bit,&#8221; Leger continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For now, these are only proposed cuts. The Sacramento City Council will discuss the whole budget on Tuesday for the first time since it was revealed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Sacramento City Council will begin the difficult budget cut debate to solve the city&#8217;s $66 million deficit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[121,123,122],"class_list":["post-298785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}