Today might not be the week to go wandering downtown — especially in the vicinity of the Underwood Pool. Why? Well, its the annual installment of Belmont’s own little experiment in Dickensian justice, otherwise known as “resurfacing the Underwood pool.” It’s a little known fact in town that the work of preparing our badly neglected Underwood pool for the season falls to convicts — but that’s the truth. Those driving on Concord Ave. may have seen the Middlesex County Sherrif’s paddy wagon parked in front of Underwood pool and a gaggle of guys in red jumpsuits standing around waiting for their orders.
I’m not sure what the town’s logic is in hiring cons (not even ex-cons at that!) to do the work, though I’m guessing it comes down to cost. Perhaps, as a public facility, the pool is one of the kinds of projects the State can have prisoners work at. I don’t really know. But I’m guessing that these guys weren’t aquatic recreation engineers (or whatever) before getting locked up. Furthermore, anyone who has used the pool in recent years can attest to the quality of the work — big globs of concrete that seem to flake off from the bottom of the pool almost as soon as they put water in it. That may just signal that the pool needs to be demo’d and replaced (perhaps in a different location). But it may also be the case that we’d get better results hiring a professional firm to do the work. Call me crazy, but…