Good morning Menlo Park City Council,
I was at the city council last night, and was particularly interested in the reopening of the gymnastics program. I wasn't sure what more to say as I had spoken at a previous city council on this topic but it became clear from listening to your discussions that the risk of Covid was what weighed most heavily as you decided you wanted to re-open but delay.
I wanted to bring to your attention what similar activities have been going on all around the city, county and Bay Area for children in that age group. One of my kids does diving; half of their practices are indoors as they do drills and practice twists and turns on gymnastics equipment. That has been going on in San Mateo county for almost a year now - with masks and ventilation. Another of my kids is a rock climber. That has also been going on in indoor gyms with masks. Even the lady from Goldstar testified that they've been operating successfully for months. My kids are both musicians as well. Our public schools have brought that back already. In high school at M-A, starting last spring even the band classes returned and they returned indoors, including for wind instruments. My other child is a singer, and those choir practices are now back throughout the Bay Area - including indoors with masks and open doors for ventilation. Importantly, as much skepticism as I had about these decisions at first, in none of these situations have there been transmissions from those activities. And they've been operating in spaces much less spacious than Burgess where we're blessed with very tall ceilings and doors open to the outside.
I hear the city's desire to manage the risk of Covid and the variant. I hear the worry that the program could perhaps be a risk. At the same time, the decision seems vastly out of step with what has been going on all around us. Besides, most if not all of you have children as well and am sure are feeling that not opening activities is not without risks for our collective physical and mental selves! To mention one thing, the PE teachers in our public schools have already starting ringing the alarm bells saying they've never seen such an unfit cohort and aren't quite sure how they'll get them to pass the presidential fitness test.
All curves are showing our Delta and COVID numbers sharply declining. We have one of the highest vaccination rates in the country and the lowest rate load in the country, thanks to our culture of wearing masks, vaccinating and observing good hygiene protocols. Our high school vaccination rate is over 96%, and we can anticipate a similarly high vaccination rate among the younger children age group when that becomes approved. We know from almost a year of re-opening various activities that the protocols in place work. I am strongly urging you to consider bringing the gymnastics program sooner than the spring. If the curves continue in the direction they're pointing at the moment, why not mid January? That'll give staff time to finish preparing, give ourselves a couple of weeks after the holidays to limit exposure after family gatherings, and perhaps even have time to vaccinate the younger age group.
Lastly, I wanted to ask why was gymnastics pushed behind other agenda items last night beyond other possibly controversial items such as L5? If it was to exhaust interested parties, it worked at least on me.
Thank you for your dedication to our city and community.
Sincerely,
Marion Marquardt
