Mayor Budgets $50M for Indoor Staten Island Pool

STATEN ISLAND — Mayor Bill de Blasio's has earmarked $50 million of next year's budget for an indoor pool in Staten Island.

The fiscal year 2017 executive budget released Tuesday includes the funds to build the pool, plans for which were announced at a town hall meeting in the borough last week.

"The City of New York needs to right another wrong," de Blasio said at the town hall. "This borough deserves an indoor swimming pool."

The mayor announced the pool after he taking responsibility for failing to secure $20 million for the Salvation Army to build a Kroc Center community center in Stapleton, which was canceled in March after a decade of planning. 

"I want to take personal responsibility because I don’t think my administration did all that we could have done," he said at the town hall.

"I think there is something that can get done but I think it's going to take work."

At the town hall, de Blasio said he would restart discussions with the Salvation Army to bring a similar facility to the area, and said the new indoor pool could be built there or at another location in the borough.

Residents and elected officials have tried several times to bring a public indoor pool in the borough, including a failed 2008 push from community board members to add an Olympic-sized pool inside the Greenbelt National Recreation Center. 

Some children's clubs also previously complained about a need for space for swim practice in the borough and said the boroughs private pools are fully booked.

Heres pic I took of the competition pool @ Philadelphia Kroc Center. SI pool is huge for our students! #SIpool pic.twitter.com/vJgoZmopIF

— Jimmy Oddo (@HeyNowJO) April 26, 2016

De Blasio also said he would pump an additional $186 million of next year's budget to repave an additional 1,300 lane miles of the city's crumbling roads, which Borough President James Oddo pushed the city to do.