After years of discussion, the development of a YMCA-operated pool facility in Battle Ground has been set back.
The effort to bring a pool to Battle Ground with the YMCA has been ongoing for decades. In 2021, the project gained momentum when the YMCA of Columbia-Willamette purchased a 7.8-acre property on Rasmussen Boulevard for $2.6 million. The following year, the Battle Ground City Council voted 5-2 to approve waivers totaling $145,000 for a proposed 18,000-square-foot facility, which would include both a recreational and lap pool. At that time, council members also asked city staff to explore additional waivers, which could save the YMCA $346,000 in system development charges, helping reduce the estimated $13 million total cost of the project.
However, plans for this site have been called off. In a Facebook post last week, Jodine Dixon, a member of the community task force advocating for the pool, informed the public that the dream of a YMCA-operated pool would not come to fruition.
“In March of this year I asked [Mayor] Troy [McCoy] if the current council was willing to begin partnering with the Y and after checking with the other council members the answer was NO. Unfortunately, the Y then decided to sell the property and use the proceeds for the Ridgefield project. We lost and Ridgefield won,” she wrote, referring to the YMCA facility planning to open in 2026.
Local residents formed the task force in 2013 to advocate for the development of a YMCA in Battle Ground by collaborating with local officials, community stakeholders and YMCA representatives to secure funding and support for the project. Dixon told The Reflector that the YMCA of Columbia-Willamette decided to sell its property shortly after she relayed her conversation with officials.
“They have a city council and a city manager who are actively reaching out to the Y and lots of organizations to figure out how can we achieve this for our community?’” she said. “... They’re treating it as a group project and they’re moving forward, and we’ve never had that kind of cooperation in Battle Ground.”
Mayor Troy McCoy confirmed with The Reflector that he had spoken with Dixon in March regarding the current council’s willingness to waive or fund more of the project. McCoy said he had proposed options, including purchasing land to gift to the YMCA, but questions about the legality of the city code became an issue.
“I did try to move the conversation forward as mayor to see if there was some political will on [the] council to do more, but a lot of that stalled with the gift of public funds issue and how much the city can do for a private organization,” McCoy said.
McCoy said, however, that the vote to waive engineering fees for the project was the last time the YMCA approached city officials in any formal manner.
City Councilor Shane Bowman denied that he was ever against a YMCA but said the issue has been about funding it from the city’s side. He argued that nonprofits should not automatically receive preferential treatment, citing the example of Goodwill, which complied with all necessary fees when establishing itself in town. For Bowman, the focus remains on whether the YMCA has raised adequate funds and whether the community truly wants to see this project come to fruition.
“We’ve never been told any of that stuff, what they’ve actually raised in funds, that kind of stuff,” Bowman said.
Both McCoy and Bowman said they have not communicated often directly with the YMCA and know little about the organization’s fundraising efforts or how much money has been raised.
“We’ve given money in waiving fees, I think they just want us to write them a check and then they’ll do it,” Bowman said. “Everyone wants to make it controversial. It’s not controversial at all. In my opinion, the YMCA has not come up with the money, and the community has not come up with the money to help them out, to be able to fund this.”
When asked, Bowman suggested a preferable option would be to hold a vote to let the public decide if taxes should be raised to fund the project. He noted that the city additionally owns several undeveloped park properties, adding to their considerations.
Bowman emphasized that while parks are important, they are not a top priority for city funding. He explained that public safety, roads and infrastructure take precedence and that the city must focus on essential services before considering recreational amenities. Bowman also suggested that any park-related projects, including the YMCA pool, should have a clear funding mechanism, such as a parks levy or bond, to ensure financial support from the community if the city is to pay for parts of the project.
“Parks … we would like to have them, but if we can’t afford them, the only way you can fund that is it has to have a funding mechanism. If we had some type of parks levy or bond we could go out there, and we know people have been positive about that when we did our community visioning,” Bowman said.
McCoy noted the city and the YMCA did not develop a clear, actionable plan, but he said the door remains open for further discussion.
“The communication wasn’t great, and that’s why a lot of people previously on council were hesitant to just give a blank check,” McCoy said. “Every time I talked to the Y it was fine. It was cordial. I believe, you know, the Y is just an organization that is trying to do great things, and they just don’t have enough money to do everything they need to do, and they need to make some hard choices. The city is not in a different spot. We need to make some hard choices about where we spend our money, too. We can’t just give our entire parks budget to one project, so it needs to be balanced.”
