Megan Navarro
WIMBERLEY — After several residents have requested the construction of a local pool or other water recreation amenities for years, Wimberley City Council selected a bidder for an aquatics feasibility study at its Thursday, Feb. 19, meeting.
The city issued a request for proposals (RFP) in November 2025, with a January 2026 deadline, seeking qualified professional services to conduct the study, which has a purpose to evaluate community needs, potential facility options, estimated costs and operational considerations related to the possible development of an aquatic facility.
Three proposals were submitted: Brandstetter Caroll Inc. at $63,000, Hotel & Leisure Advisors at $99,700 and Kimley-Horn at $58,000. With it being the lowest bid, Kimley-Horn was the highest scoring bidder, according to parks director Erica Flocke, who explained that the proposals were reviewed at the Feb. 18 Wimberley Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meeting.
Board members acknowledged that aquatic amenities were frequently mentioned in the Parks Master Plan survey and that the community is interested in having pool access, Flocke said. However, the board’s primary concern was long-term financial sustainability.
“While a $58,000 study is able to be funded from our parks budget, they questioned whether it was prudent to spend those funds on a feasibility study, when the city does not currently have an identified funding mechanism for construction or ongoing operations of an aquatic facility,” Flocke explained.
Water availability amid ongoing drought conditions was also discussed at length as a significant local constraint, the parks director added.
Ultimately, the Parks board voted 7-0 to recommend that city council does not move forward with the feasibility study bids at this time, but it did recommend moving forward with a subcommittee to explore alternative aquatic opportunities, including “potential partnerships with existing facilities, shared use agreements or other creative solutions that may provide access, without placing strain on the parks budget,” Flocke said.
While he is not a voting member, Mayor Jim Chiles said that he believes the study needs to be moved forward because it will identify some of the funding mechanisms and how the city can pay for it with partners, like the county, city of Woodcreek and Wimberley ISD.
Council member Rebecca Minnick asked if the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board was involved in the Parks Master Plan development last year.
“We were extensively involved in that comprehensive master plan for the parks and I think this RFP process, this was not the first time it had been discussed. Obviously, we recommended we go forward with a bid for RFP’s,” said Leah Cuddeback, board chair.
Cuddeback shared that the board got “sticker shock” and when they saw the cost of the submitted proposals ranging from $58,000 to $99,000, they questioned if it was the best use of funds.
“The real concern that came up was just the fact that the $58,000 price tag felt like a weird use of our time and money in contracting somebody to create a study that we believe will show us that it is not feasible to put in a pool,” she said. “We don’t know that because a feasibility study will tell you, but the board raised significant concerns around what the funding mechanism could even be in the long-run, since we don’t have a property tax.”
Minnick asked if the numbers, when they came in, were shared with the parks board — city administrator Tim Patek responded that he, Flocke and board member Lee Ann Linam were on the scoring committee.
The council member then questioned the board having sticker shock, even though there was a parks board member that was reviewing the RFP’s.
“I think the parks board just felt that we were a little bit concerned in a year when we are already facing a drought in February and we’ve had hardly any rain, we don’t know what revenue is going to be like at Blue Hole,” Cuddeback said. “It felt uncomfortable to us to say, ‘Let’s use money from the parks to fund a study that we don’t know [if] this study will be used. Will this be put on a shelf? Will it lead to a long-term answer?’”
She added that people want a pool and alternative swimming options, but the board is worried that there may already be those available in the community and they are not being utilized, including the pools at the Wimberley Inn, 7A Ranch and Unity Church.
Cuddeback also said that some of the board members may have more connections to those people and were interested in forming a subcommittee comprised of locals, council members and the parks board to “kind of [do it yourself] this because they thought, at the end of the day, if people want swimming opportunities, there could be a way to spend $60,000 that isn’t creating a plan. It’s putting money into existing resources in the community.”
A component of this is trying to get somewhere that the Wimberley High School swim team can practice — as well as younger kids for lessons — because they are having to be transported to Dripping Springs every day, since there is not a local facility currently.
“We had not been told that any of this had to do with the school swim team,” Cuddeback said.
The school district is interested in being a partner, Chiles said, and the city will take care of the cost of the feasibility study.
Cuddeback said at the end of the day, they are an advisory board and city council has a better understanding of the city of Wimberley’s financial standing, but the board does advise spending the money a little differently.
Council member David Cohen said that the idea of a feasibility study is to see if something is feasible, but “it sounds to me that you decided before the study that it is not feasible and you don’t want to spend the money, but I don’t know what basis you come to that conclusion on.”
Flocke chimed in that she reached out to a few neighboring areas to get an idea of what it’s like to run a pool with a community of this size and all of them have property tax, describing them as “money sinks,” which she relayed to the board.
“At the end of the day, a feasibility study is to see if it’s feasible for our community, specifically, so there is some discrepancy there,” she said.
The issue at hand, she continued, is the parks board does not know if it wants to go through with the study.
Being on council for seven years, Minnick shared that the community has asked for this even before she was sitting on the dais and she thinks that it’s important that they pay attention to what the residents want, but they won’t know the answers to all of the questions without the necessary experts.
Council ultimately voted 3-1, with Sheffield dissenting, due to wanting to put funding elsewhere, to select Kimley-Horn as the bidder of the aquatics feasibility study.
To listen to the full discussion, visit www.cityofwimberley.com/292/Public-Meetings.
