Overland Park neighbors push for the return of Bluejacket Pool: ‘A public good’

A nearby community pool was one of Rachel Shuck’s must-haves when she and her husband bought their home in Overland Park almost 10 years ago.

The couple landed in the Oak Park neighborhood on 103rd Street near the former Bluejacket Pool. She said they took their oldest daughter to the pool the first summer after she was born in 2018.

“It was so fun. We quickly made friends at the pool, and it was a great way for us to meet people who had other kids our kiddo’s age,” she said. “It really wasn’t until she went to kindergarten that we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is going to be such a fun summer, seeing all of our friends from school there.’”

But Bluejacket Pool reached the end of its useful life and closed permanently before that summer came. After several efforts to reopen the pool after the pandemic, the city had to finally shut it down because it was leaking 1,500 gallons of water every hour — closing a beloved staple for many residents.

“It was really, really hard and really heartbreaking for us when the pool closed,” Shuck said. “I never wanted to be a public servant or get involved with this kind of stuff, I just wanted our family to have a pool that was close by.”

Shuck joined several residents in the Oak Park neighborhood who have been advocating in City Hall for Bluejacket Pool to be rebuilt in their neighborhood for years, with their most recent efforts coming forward as Overland Park creates its new 10-year parks and recreation plan. It features a call for two neighborhood pools in northern Overland Park.

After Bluejacket neighbors participated in surveys and questionnaires and engaged with city officials, they hope that Bluejacket will be named as one of the potential pool sites in the coming years.

“I would love for there to be a pool in Bluejacket Park — a place for people of all ages to come to and gather and to be in community with each other,” Shuck said. “It was such a great experience for us, and I think it was such a benefit for our community to have that there.”

The City Council will have a more in-depth discussion about aquatics on July 20, before the parks plan is finalized later this year, city spokesperson Meg Ralph said in an email.

Naming Bluejacket

The city plan, called Playbook OP, lays out how Overland Park hopes to maintain its current facilities and best serve its anticipated growing population. Alongside maintaining current parks and expanding trail systems, aquatics emerged as one of the top three priorities in the plan — particularly a need for two smaller, neighborhood pools north of Interstate 435.

“This part of town is unique in that we did not have HOA private pools,” said Ward 2 City Councilmember Drew Mitrisin, who represents the Oak Park neighbors advocating for Bluejacket. “These neighborhoods were built in some ways around city pools.”

While Overland Park closed three community pools since 2013 as part of its previous effort to move toward more regional, destination aquatic centers, Mitrisin said the updated version of Playbook OP shows a refreshed appetite for smaller scale, neighborhood pools.

“It’s kind of sad that we’ve lost these spaces where neighborhoods can interact with each other,” he said. “It’s a safe contained facility … where people can enjoy being outside, have some refuge from the sun in the summertime. But I think it’s an important part of what makes neighborhoods really healthy.”

Playbook OP calls to rebuild Stonegate Pool — another neighborhood pool that will reach the end of its useful life in the next 10 years. And while the second pool isn’t named, Mitrisin and fellow Ward 2 City Councilmember Melissa Cheatham have been pushing for Bluejacket Pool to be the second location.

“There’s not many sites the city owns that could accommodate community pools,” Cheatham said. “You need things like parking, you don’t want a major amenity in a floodplain, you want something in our part of town in relation to the other pools available.”

In 2024, the Overland Park City Council earmarked $400,000 in its 2025 budget to design new amenities at the Bluejacket site — including the possibility of designing a pool, according to city documents. But those dollars are in limbo until the city finalizes its new master plan.

“I think it’s time to move forward, we have very clear feedback from the community,” Cheatham said. “Folks were told to trust the process and make their voices heard … We’ve done enough studying and surveying. It’s time to move forward.”

Bids to buy the land

Maggie Roby’s kids learned how to swim at Bluejacket, the Overland Park resident said. They spent several summers going swimming for an hour after she got off of work on hot summer nights.

Roby also serves as the homes association president and briefly sat on the Overland Park Parks and Recreation Commission.

“I knew that the closure was coming just because of all of my involvement. I don’t think it made it any less painful to go through,” she said.

Her kids were devastated when the pool closed permanently.

“Talk about tough conversations with your children — they were very distraught. It was a very emotional night in the Roby household,” she said. “My oldest looked at me and said, ‘Mom, you have to save the pool.’”

Before Playbook OP came forward, the Oak Park Homes Association offered to buy the land from the city to build an HOA pool, but a sale never went forward because the land was gifted to the city, Roby said.

Since the homes association couldn’t buy the land, Roby said she was happy to see the city listen to residents and flag two new community pools in northern Overland Park.

“I think my neighbors specifically in our homes association are making – and have made – their opinions very loud and clear that this is an amenity we would like to have back in our neighborhood,” she said.

Pools are expensive

While Mayor Curt Skoog said he has loved seeing the community engagement with the city’s parks plan, he’s worried about the costs of running neighborhood pools for smaller portions of the city.

“I grew up with a swimming pool in my backyard, I love swimming pools. The question is, in a world of limited resources, where do you use those dollars?” he said.

Ralph, the city’s spokesperson, said in a statement that the city estimated in 2024 that a new pool would cost between $12 million and $18 million, but that number may have changed due to inflation or other variables.

As the City Council eyes an upcoming discussion about aquatics, Skoog said he wants to make sure that his fellow council members understand the capital costs of pools and the 40- to 50-year financial commitment when building them.

“I want to make sure that the council understands that because if we make the decision to do neighborhood pools, why does Bluejacket get one and other people don’t?” he asked. “I think it’s hard for a council to agree to one additional neighborhood pool. If we are going to do neighborhood pools, we should do neighborhood pools, but we have limited resources.”

It’s part of why Overland Park shifted away from neighborhood pools in the first place and transitioned to larger aquatic centers — many of which will also need significant maintenance and improvements in the next 10 years, he said.

Creative solutions

But Councilmember Mitrisin said he thinks there could be some creative solutions to bringing this pool back to the community — like a smaller pool design or having neighbors elect adding a special benefit district on their property tax bills where they are charged a certain amount of money because they live near the pool.

“That’s a real thing the state allows, and we set up (Community Improvement Districts) and special districts all of the time,” he said. “There’s just different ways to pay for it and if people want a pool, we have a way to achieve it.”

While she recognized that pools cost a lot of money to maintain, it’s still “a public good” the city provides to its constituents, Oak Park resident Shannee Steinmeier said.

“This (Playbook OP) isn’t necessarily a punch list of things to get done, these are all the things we want to hopefully add to our community,” she said.

Like many of her neighbors, Steinmeier moved to Oak Park to be near Bluejacket Pool. When they moved, her oldest was 4 and her now middle child was 1, she said. They played in the baby pool, they loved the hippo slide and Steinmeier said she couldn’t wait to start swim lessons and soak up more summers at the pool.

When the pool closed, they opted for a Lenexa pool pass — but the larger aquatic centers make it hard to keep track of her kids. Now, she’s hopeful that a quieter, smaller neighborhood pool might return to the community.

“If anything I just want to emphasize that this isn’t a bunch of people who are angry,” she said.

“While disappointed and sad that our pool is gone — it’s (now) a field of grass, it’s a lonely bench sitting on the far side — it’s a community of people who just really loved that pool and really loved it for their kids and loved it for their families.”