University of Georgia President Michael Adams thinks the controversy over closing Legion Pool is "overblown."

Adams held his monthly press conference today, and one of the topics reporters asked him about was the status of the beloved 80-year-old pool, possibly slated for demolition this fall. He sounded exasperated, noting that UGA is gearing up for a new academic year and dealing with more budget cuts. "There's been more written about a pool than all this other stuff, which is five or six times as important," he said.

Adams took issue, in particular, with Flagpole's open records request seeking financial information about repairing Legion Pool and replacing it with a new, smaller pool near Lake Herrick, as well as other media reports. Those reports were based on the university's own documents estimating repair costs at $490,000 and new construction at $2.6 million, but he called the figures "erroneous" and "premature."

The university will hold a public hearing on Legion Pool at some point after more than 100 local residents requested one. It will be held "a little later than we anticipated, but I'm not ready to say (when) yet," Adams said.

UGA officials have put off a decision on whether to move forward with the plan, and a University System Board of Regents vote is no longer scheduled for next month. "We have not made a decision on whether to go forward with that," Adams said. "There are pros and cons."

His support for filling in Legion Pool may have softened, but Adams still laid out its advantages: The property off South Lumpkin Street is now in the middle of campus, very valuable and better off used for housing or academic buildings, he said. He said he was caught off guard by the level of opposition.

Adams also responded to another town-gown issue, Sigma Chi's plans to build a 17,000 square-foot fraternity house on North Milledge Avenue that has Cobbham residents up in arms. Adams said he lived just yards away from a frat house in Kentucky for nine years, and there were only a few days he wished they'd pipe down. "I don't have the same fear of this as some of my friends do," he said. He said he thinks the location is an appropriate one as long as parking issues are worked out. He urged students to respect neighborhoods and permanent residents to respect the fact that they live in a college town. Students behave well 99 percent of the time, he said.

UGA is tearing down the Sigma Chi house to make way for a new Terry College of Business building near the special collections library. Ground will be broken later this year on the $35 million project, funded entirely with donations and named for former Georgia Pacific chairman Pete Correll. Other construction projects that are underway or coming up soon include the new Bolton Dining Hall, the new Rutherford Hall and renovations to Rhodes and Scott halls on the health sciences campus, administrators said.

As for those budget cuts: Like other state agencies, Gov. Nathan Deal has ordered UGA to cut another 3 percent, bringing total state budget cuts to 26 percent, or $100 million, since 2008. The university is eliminating 130 positions, mostly extension agents and other College of Agriculture employees. Eighty percent of UGA's expenses are personnel, Adams said, so layoffs are unavoidable.

At the same time, Adams said Provost Jere Morehead is in the process of hiring back 85 to 95 of the 160 faculty positions that have been eliminated. Most of those cut are staff, and they're down by about 600 since the recession began, he said. "We're into bone marrow," he said. "...Frankly, I think the general public should be more concerned than they've shown."