Fellow CHSRC members,

I am quite certain many of you saw the articles in the Mercury News last week concerning pool safety and the Virginia Graham Baker Act. I wanted to provide you with an update of what we have been doing at CHSRC to ensure the safety of all pool users and our conformance to the Act.

Rommy and the Board learned of the Virginia Graham Baker Act and the possible need for pool drains to be replaced in January. Rather than waiting for the county to come and do an inspection, Rommy proactively called them and requested an inspection of our pool drain system. A representative from the county came to CHSRC and met with Rommy and myself. At that time, the county did not have instructions to do inspections as it was a federal law and there was no state law giving them authorization to inspect and recommend actions (if appropriate). However, the representative was willing to review our system and to give us some informal feedback. His assessment at that time was that both of our pools were in conformance with the VGB Act and that no action on our part was required. Please understand this was not a formal report and we did not consider it to be the final answer. However, it did give us the confidence to open our pools with a firm belief our members were not in danger.

As you could tell from the articles in the paper, the county is now authorized to conduct inspections and to recommend actions (if required). Despite the newspaper saying that commercial pools, spas and clubs had been inspected, we had not been inspected as of last Friday, April 3. Therefore, I asked Rommy to again proactively call the county to request an inspection. We wanted to be sure we were doing everything possible to ensure your safety.

The county responded to our request and sent an inspector on Monday April 6. I am very pleased to tell all of you that our pools were deemed safe from suction related entrapment due to the construction which was used -- this is the primary focus of the Act. In addition, the dual drains at the bottom of both pools are in conformance with the VGB Act. They also checked for two other items requiring conformance and, once again, we were deemed to be in conformance.

However, we do need to install anti-hair trap covers for all drains to be in full conformance and to pass a final inspection. We have already placed an order for the covers and will have them installed as soon as they are received.

We wanted all of you to know that our pools are safe, the Board and Rommy are proactively doing everything we can to ensure full compliance with the VGB Act, and that we fully expect to pass a final inspection this month. I will provide an update to all members as soon as we have passed the final inspection.

I hope all of you will agree that Rommy and the Board have acted in a very timely and responsible manner.

Best regards,

Dick Wilson
President, Board of Directors -- CHSRC