Dear City of Menlo Park Recreation and Community Services Team,
I am writing as a Menlo Park resident and parent to formally express my concern regarding the new Burgess Pool schedule, particularly the lack of meaningful weekday family open-swim access after 3:45 p.m.
This schedule is not workable for many Menlo Park families.
For families, the late afternoon and early evening is the primary window when parents are finished with work and children are out of school. Yet the current Burgess schedule provides essentially no meaningful family open-swim opportunity during this period on weekdays. The pool may technically remain open until 8 p.m., but that does not mean the facility is actually accessible for families to swim together.
This is particularly concerning because the City itself describes Burgess as a “full-service community swim center” with a family-friendly recreational pool. The Citys aquatics planning materials also specifically identify family recreation/open swim as a program whose goal is to maximize availability during summer and during non-summer weekday evenings.
The current schedule appears inconsistent with that stated objective.
I understand that the City has made difficult budget decisions for fiscal year 2026–27. However, reducing or restructuring pool hours should not effectively eliminate access for one of the most important groups the facility is intended to serve: working families with children.
In fact, the City is currently asking residents to provide feedback regarding the new pool hours. I am therefore asking that this concern be taken seriously and that the City reconsider the allocation of pool time at Burgess.
Specifically, I would ask the City to:
1. Restore meaningful weekday family open-swim hours after 3:45 p.m., ideally during the 4:00–6:00 p.m. period when families can realistically use the pool.
2. Evaluate pool utilization by program, including whether all currently scheduled instructional and other programming during these hours is generating sufficient community benefit to justify eliminating family recreational access.
3. Publish the utilization and demand data used to develop the new schedule, including participation by program and the rationale for allocating the late-afternoon/evening hours as it currently does.
4. Explain how the current schedule is consistent with the Citys stated goal of maximizing family recreation/open-swim availability during weekday evenings.
5. Bring this issue back to the Parks and Recreation Commission and/or City Council if the current schedule cannot be modified administratively.
Burgess Pool is a City-owned community facility. Menlo Park families should not have to choose between taking their children swimming during the middle of the workday or essentially giving up on weekday recreational swimming altogether.
The current schedule may work for certain user groups, but it does not adequately serve families who live in Menlo Park and pay to support these public facilities. A pool that is open until 8 p.m. but offers little or no family recreational access during the hours families can actually use it is not meeting the needs of the community.
I respectfully request a substantive response addressing the points above, rather than simply directing residents to the published schedule. The issue is precisely the allocation of those hours.
I would also encourage the City to consider a relatively simple solution: reserve a meaningful portion of the late-afternoon schedule, for family open swim. This would provide a substantial benefit to Menlo Park families without requiring the City to restore all previously available pool hours.
Thank you for your consideration. I hope the City will recognize this as an important quality-of-life issue for Menlo Park families and reconsider the current schedule.
Sincerely,
Rahim Nazerali
Menlo Park Resident
