Fairfield to reopen rec center May 12, pending council approval

FAIRFIELD - The Roosevelt Community Recreation Center in Fairfield has announced plans to reopen on May 12, pending city council approval on May 11.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced April 27 that she would lift restrictions on certain counties with a low number of COVID-19 cases. Beginning Friday, May 1, restaurants, fitness centers and some retail stores in 77 counties across the state can reopen, albeit at 50 percent capacity.

'We must learn to live with COVID virus activity without letting it govern our lives,” Reynolds said during Monday's news conference.

Fairfield Park and Rec Director Calvin Todd said the proclamation only applies to the rec center portion of the building and not the indoor pool, which will remain closed until further notice. City playgrounds and shelters also remain closed. The proclamation states that all equipment in the fitness center must be spaced at least six feet apart, or other measures must be taken to ensure closely spaced equipment is not used. Group activities such as classes must be limited to 10 or fewer people and all people participating must be at least six feet apart.

'We're hoping to reopen our weight room, but we're not 100 percent sure on how it will look based on these restrictions,” Todd said. 'We are discussing how we can space things out, or if we just have to block off certain pieces of equipment.”

Todd said he is also hoping to reopen with a full staff, but he's not sure about that, either.

'A lot of this stuff is up in the air,” he said. 'We wish this would go away so we could reopen as normal. We have to find a way we can safely open the facility to the public. All city employees, and citizens of Fairfield, have to look out for each other in times like this.”

Todd said the rec center will have a greater emphasis on wiping down surfaces and equipment once it reopens. He said gym wipes are provided at every workout location for that purpose. At this point, the rec center is not going to make its employees wear masks like some businesses have done including grocery stores such as Walmart, Hy-Vee and Everybody's.

Though the rec center hasn't been open for more than a month, that doesn't mean its staff have been sitting on their hands. In fact, they've been hard at work performing annual maintenance they would normally do during the summer. The silver lining is that the rec center won't need to be closed in the summer for that maintenance since it's already done. What's more, the staff have had time to repaint the weight room and locker rooms, and work on the outdoor pool, such as draining it of water collected over the winter and power-washing it to clear the buildup of dirt, grime and algae.

The staff are preparing the outdoor pool to open at its normal time, which is over Memorial Day weekend. Todd said that, since the pool's lifeguards are mostly high school and college students who are now taking online courses, the outdoor pool could open even sooner than Memorial Day, if restrictions have been lifted by then.

Unlike the city's rec center, Maharishi International University's rec center has announced no plan to open. Tom Brooks, the university's vice president of operations, said its rec center will remain closed 'until the danger of COVID-19 has passed.”

'We are constantly reviewing the COVID-19 situation in Iowa and specifically Jefferson County,” Brooks said. 'We will post any change to the MIU and Fairfield community immediately. Please know we strive to open as soon as the risk of spreading the disease is reduced. Safety first.”