2026 Annual Meeting Notes
FODE Board of Directors (BoD) and friends came together for our annual meeting on Tuesday 5 May 2026. In attendance were Christina Flores, Paul Bardagjy, Tom Fornoff, Benjamin Sorrento (and daughter), Karen Kelly, Haley Moberg, Sally Koch, Jeff Hershey, Maureen Coulehan, Jeanette Scott, Billy Apt and Blake Tollett. Callahan Smith from Austin Parks & Recreation (APR) joined us along with our President Emeritus and part-time Canadian Leon Barish.
2025 Minutes Approved and Financial Report
We began the meeting by reviewing the minutes submitted from last year’s annual meeting, and upon motion and second, the minutes were adopted. Tom will post them on our website. Our Treasurer Maureen was running late but Paul reported that we had just over $90,000 in our account. Once again, Heidi was honored for her relentless selling of our t-shirts; we have approximately 100 left and will renew our order as needed.
Deep Eddy Vision Project
The Deep Eddy Vision Project is a citizen-led initiative to define optimal capital improvements and create a roadmap for how the City of Austin’s historic Deep Eddy Pool and adjoining Eilers Park could evolve over the coming decades and century as a pool and a park. Community members seek plans for addressing the non-sanctioned use of parking spaces by adjacent commercial enterprises, and for gaining more benefit from areas that are fallow or deployed in non-recreational use.
A big thank you to Tom, Chris, Maureen, Jeff, Ben, Jeanette and Shelly for their work on this. A very good first step.
Implementing, or at least formalizing the Vision Statement into some type of planning document, is our next step. What the next step entails was vigorously discussed. APR has been asked to explore the retention of a planning firm to undertake an open community involved concept plan, defined below:
The project will develop a concept plan that evaluates existing conditions and site context to identify opportunities to enhance recreational amenities, improve accessibility and connectivity, and guide the future layout, programming, and phased implementation of park improvements. The planning process will include community engagement and coordination with APR goals. Final deliverables will include an illustrative concept plan, summary report identifying how community input influenced the concept plan, implementation strategy and probable costs.
FODE is being asked to contribute approximately 1/3 of the plan’s projected cost of $110,000.
As an alternative, Blake asked why we couldn’t just expand on and update our city approved historic plan from the early 2000s. A revisiting of the plan, under the guidance of APR, would allow for a more tailored community engagement on the front end, but would probably eliminate or limit funding opportunities from the city itself.
Regardless of how our vision plan is realized, finding the city monies necessary to implement recommendations identified in the plan in the near future, considering the city’s current budget emergency, will be problematic.
Updates from Deep Eddy Supervisor
We heard a set of updates from Callahan Smith, City of Austin Aquatics Supervision of Deep Eddy Pool:
Well #1 has been offline for several months. To bring it back online will require downhole work that will necessitate the closing of the Hike & Bike Trail head. Well #2 continues to produce water that is fresh but with a green and murky tint. Wells #3&4 are not able to completely fill the lap pool every day. The City’s Watershed Department is helping monitor the situation. Our friends from Geo Projects, our preferred vendor, are cautioning us about overdoing cleanouts of the wells as that can contribute to the deterioration of the existing shafts. The obvious solution is another well; we have identified a site between the bathhouse and the entrance down to Eiler’s Park adjacent to the parking lot. The access for a drilling rig is easier at that location and there is close-by electricity. Funding of another well would probably fall on FODE with a ballpark estimate of $150,000 to $200,000.
The installation of eight new lane line anchors in the shallow side of the pool allowing four more lane lines for morning lap swims, under a limited Community Activated Parks Project (CAPP) submitted by FODE, is complete. Paul is waiting on the invoice.
Off-season water savings. Due to finite water availability, and recognizing limited off-season (late fall, winter and early spring) demand for lap swimming, Callahan put forward a preliminary proposal by APR. The continuous refilling of the pool would emphasize the shallow/public side over the lap pool side. The public/shallow side would then retain and expand the opportunity for lap swimming as well as accommodate the general public. An alternative APR proposal is to not fill the shallow/public side and designate at least two of the shallowest lap pool lanes for public use. There is only so much water in the ground for us to tap and there are many days during the off-season when the general public could enjoy the facility.
As for the parking lot, the facility is under the Transportation Department, not Aquatics. Regardless, Aquatics will continue to monitor use of the lot during holiday weekends. Callahan did tell us that the entrance to the dirt lot has been improved with a ramp over the culvert.
The Tuesday closure of Deep Eddy has been beneficial in allowing deferred general maintenance issues such as forestry work to be addressed.
Board of Directors & Officers Elected
The following folks were named to the Board of Directors: Billy Apt, Paul Bardagjy, Maureen Coulehan, Christina Flores, Tom Fornoff, Heidi Gibbons, Shelley Hardeman, Sally Koch, Haley Moberg, Jeanette Scott, Sarah Searight, Benjamin Serrato, Vickie Tatum, and Blake Tollett
The following officers were elected to serve for 2026:
President: Paul Bardagjy
Vice President: Christina Flores
Secretary: Blake Tollett
Treasurer: Maureen Coulehan
Events Coordinator: Jeanette Scott
Communications: Tom Fornoff
At this point, we adjourned.