But the decision to certify the study and add the pool project in Rosita Park to the city's capital improvement plan left some things undecided.

Such as how many pools will be built. Or how big they'll be. Some council members have suggested they'd still like to talk about other sites, and the Rosita Neighborhood Coalition, which successfully sued the city in 2002, plans to file another complaint.

But with years of study and hours of debate already devoted to Rosita Park, many residents believe a pool of some kind is headed for their neighborhood.

"I don't think the city leaders have the stomach or the wherewithal or the money to seek out a place in the city where something like this really does belong," said Karl Urban, president of the Rosita Neighborhood Coalition.

The challenge will be designing a center that swimmers and neighbors can accept. Mayor David Casas said he plans to bring together neighborhood residents, swimmers, representatives from nearby Covington Elementary School and others to discuss the design. Those meetings could start as early as February, Casas said, after the council has set its priorities for the year.

"I'm really hoping that we can work on something that together we can all point to with pride." Casas said.

Neighbors are concerned that the proposed two-pool complex would overwhelm Rosita Avenue. The dead-end street already leads to Covington Elementary School and several baseball and soccer fields. Swimmers say they need two pools to meet the different needs of competitive and recreational swimmers.

Kathy Englar, whose organization, Swimmers Promoting Los Altos Aquatics, Safety and Health, has pledged to raise money to build the pool, said SPLASH is open to considering smaller pools.

"I think that we're feeling very pragmatic these days," Englar said. "We'd like to move forward."

Officially, the pool has been added to the city's capital improvement program for the 2005-06 budget year. But that doesn't mean a pool will be under way within the year, said Councilman John Moss. It could mean the council orders more studies. Or it could lead to a pool-related project, such as improving sidewalks along Rosita Avenue or tearing down a gymnasium on the site.

Two tennis courts on the site also could be demolished, which tennis player Lynn Hunton called ``a disaster.'' Hunton plays doubles at the courts once a week and said Los Altos doesn't have enough public courts as it is.

"It's a loss that we're concerned about, unless they're going to replace it with other courts someplace else," Hunton said.

Resident Roger Smith has a particular interest in the gym. The facility is home to his aurora volleyball club, the newest of several volleyball organizations that have practiced there. Smith lives there, too, in an apartment inside the building.

The pool proposal doesn't require tearing down the gym. But the demolition was previously listed in the city's capital improvement program, and the resulting space could become a parking lot for the pool.

Smith said he's not worried about his home -- he could always move, he said. But he does worry about the volleyball program. Six teams -- a total of 72 sixth- through 12th-grade girls -- practice in the gym for a combined 24 hours a week. It's hard to get that kind of time at other area gyms, Smith said.

"I don't want to see the building go away, because that means this junior girls volleyball club goes away," he said.

After 10 years of living at the end of Rosita Avenue, Smith empathizes with neighbors who don't want to lose their quiet street. But he also sees the value of a community pool; his daughter learned the backstroke in the old Covington Pool, just a few hundred feet from the proposed new site. Covington Pool, which opened in 1954 and closed in 2001 so Covington Elementary School could reopen, was located closer to the school property. But during most of the years when both the school and pool were open, the school was a junior high. That's a key point for parents of current Covington students, who worry about increased traffic from residents using the pool and want their young children to get to school safely.

In December, Councilman King Lear read a list of conditions, including a city-funded bicycle path on Rosita Avenue, that he would ask to place on any pool project in the neighborhood.

Covington Parent-Teacher Association President Amy Gaffney has said she'd also like the school's principal to be included on any team designing the pool, including a decision about whether there will be one or two pools.

"We need to make sure that our children remain safe and our school is not impacted," Gaffney said.

The Los Altos Masters, who ran Covington Pool, had to offer many hours of swimming lessons just to break even, which could mean more and more traffic.

Meanwhile, one mitigating factor might be that council members have suggested the city should start to subsidize swimming, as it does other youth sports. SPLASH could cut back on some programming if city money were available, said Dick Thomas, SPLASH co-director.

Even as the pool is being designed, SPLASH will be raising money to build it. The city stipulated years ago that the money has to be in hand before construction begins.

"Obviously," Thomas said, "we'd like to get a hole in the ground as soon as possible."