Could the end be in sight for the great Los Altos pool drought? Could Los Altos kids and adults stop being users for a change?

Pardon me for being crass, but now that a judge has cleared the way for the Covington Pool to be built, I see boundless opportunity to correct the unsavory image of NIMBY-prone Los Altans.

Los Altans could be reimagined as civic-minded citizens instead of users and Not-In-My-Back-Yard litigants. As someone who grew up in Los Altos (What did you think L.A. Chung stands for?), it hurts to blithely use other cities' stuff. Even if we pay.

Covington Pool has a special place in my heart. I learned to swim there. I mastered sculling and breaststroke in its waters, and soaked up the sun for hours on its decks. Family vacations had to wait until we finished the homespun, hokey ``Aquacade'' show at the end of the summer. Covington was a wonderful resource.

Alas, the pool was demolished in 2001, part of the 1998 decision to reopen Covington School. As supporters spanning three generations offered to raise private funds to build and operate a new pool in the area, the chlorine battles erupted.

Disgruntlement. The specter of traffic, noise. And a lawsuit.

Mitigate or litigate?

Not that such concerns are to be ignored. But by the tenor of the debate you'd think the city had proposed an Olympic-size pool and invited Michael Phelps to Rosita Avenue to sign autographs. Plans halted.

Meanwhile, kids grew up. Parents sent them to other communities' pools. Or just didn't participate.

If you're a satellite-picture buff, like Mayor Dave Casas, a miles-high view of Los Altos reveals an astonishing number of backyard pools. Casas suspects that may account for a feeling among some that ``We all have pools, so why do we need a community pool?'' Well, not all.

Never mind the let-them-eat-cake attitude that implies. There's a bigger loss. Sure, you don't ``need'' a community pool. You can hire a private instructor. You can swim alone.

Which is akin to bowling alone, the phrase coined by David Putnam, the Harvard professor who wrote about the decline of civic social fabric, the disconnectedness that impoverishes lives and communities.

Resident Randy Rhody is a user, but a reluctant one.

``When I want to swim, I go to Eagle Pool in Mountain View. When I want to bicycle without endangering my life, I go to Stevens Creek Trail in Mountain View,'' he wrote in a letter to the editor in the Los Altos Town Crier.

Stymied opportunities -- the extension of the Hetch Hetchy trail in north Los Altos, the city's missing segment of the Stevens Creek Trail, and the pool -- ``really riles me,'' he told me. ``Why don't we have our own stuff?''

Toward civic reconnection?

With the judicial green light, Friday was the first time since 2003 a city-appointed task force was able to meet to restart pool planning.

Some neighbors still don't want the pool. The Rosita Neighborhood Coalition has 60 days to decide whether to appeal the decision.

After Friday's meeting, Eric Lutkin, a task force member from the coalition, expressed hope they could have a meeting of minds. ``I hope we all come up with a workable outcome,'' he said. ``There are more than Los Altans who will end up using this.'' Well. Well, indeed.

If everyone works earnestly, pool construction might be under way next summer. Mayor Casas characterizes the reaction that drove the lawsuit as ``consternation'' rather than NIMBYism and says that's not necessarily a bad thing.

``A lot of good can come out of consternation if managed well,'' he said. I can go with that. If it moves Los Altos forward.

Wonderful town, Los Altos. But, really, no place to swim alone.