Like this bet?

The City of Tacoma and Metro Parks are borrowing $6.2 million to rebuild the pool at People's Center.

Consultants, using community input, propose an indoor pool and "leisure features" like a sprayground and water slide. (Teenagers love slides, apparently. It's the thrill.) A huge overhead door would open on sunny days to connect the sprayground to the outside. Admission: $3.50 per person per day. In the lowest-income zip code in Tacoma.

The consultants say the pool will only lose about $200,000 a year. The City agreed to cover the deficit (along with repaying its share of the construction bonds).

A good bet?

Or could the CIty lose even more than the consultants predict and drain the budget?

Let's pause a minute to define "swimmer days." This is the number of people who swim multiplied by the number of days they swim. If you and I each swim five days, that's 10 swimmer days [2 people X 5 days each = 10 swimmer days]. Swimmer days is essentially the number of tickets sold.

The consultants estimate 60,000 annual swimmer days from Zip 98405 and another 15,000 days from out-of-area for a total of 75,000.

To use a medical term, they're smoking something.

Consider: Before the pool closed for structural reasons it averaged 4,000 annual swimmer days. The consultants expect the new pool to attract 19 times that number. Really?

Consider: The benchmarking of other pools is weak. All the comparisons are with higher income areas than 98405 and most are with more elaborate facilities than what's planned here.

Consider: Some comparisons are just whacky. Take Whistler. It tends to get more tourists than 98405. Or Tumbler Ridge, a mining camp with 2,700 people. Trust me; there's not much to do in Tumbler Ridge besides swim.

Consider: In most comparison communities there‘s no competition; People's Center is surrounded. Franklin and Wright Parks have free spraygrounds as does Jefferson Park,  a few blocks across Sixth Avenue. The YMCA has 2,750 members from 98405, 12 percent of the zip code's population. They can all use the Morgan Y pool; adults can use the pool at City Center Y and kids can take lessons.

Here's my bet: Since construction costs are up about six percent since 2011, the facility won't be as spiffy as the consultants suggest. Swimmer days will be half the projection. The City will have an annual deficit of $500,000.

In other words, every time someone dives in the pool, it costs the City $7.00.

And where will the money come from? The General Fund, the same fund that pays for libraries and cops, economic development and arts. BTW, the City just closed the branch library and police substation in 98405.

Is a pool really more important?

Look, aquatics are fun but they're expensive, and with pools and spraygrounds already available nearby, this new facility isn't just a careless way to spend money; it diverts funds from more important services.