Dear Menlo Park City Council,
My wife and I moved to Menlo Park from San Carlos in 2004 because we wanted to be closer to a decent aquatic facility. When the City was running the pool, usage was fairly low and it was not uncommon that morning lap swim would not open due to occasional lack of lifeguards. This completely changed when Menlo Swim and Sport took over in 2006. The pool became vibrant with multiple programs and available staff, friendly and helpful.
As you know, our pool is so well run that the City of Palo Alto came and asked Tim Sheeper to run their pool.
During the pandemic, Team Sheeper went above and beyond what could be expected to still run the pool safely and continued offering programs despite logistical challenges, and at a time when so many businesses gave up and closed their doors.
As you have heard from other cities, we have the best run aquatics program of the Peninsula and we should not mess with it.
In comparing proposals, and similarly to City staff observations, I will note that SOLO has no experience running an aquatics facility. This is especially apparent when comparing their expense budget to Team Sheeper’s budget.
The SOLO budget only lists payroll + $200K of equipment and office supplies. On the Team Sheeper budget, you will see items that were not counted in the SOLO budget: Cleaning $118K, Payroll Taxes $215K, Insurance $236K, credit card fees $119K plus a few others. So, yes SOLO is offering to pay $650K of cost recovery to the City, but SOLO is also missing at least $688K of expenses that they would have to account for, which they would have known IF they had actual experience running a facility. And by the way, Sheeper is also offering 99h per week vs 63h for SOLO.
Unfortunately the SWAN budget was redacted from the document posted, could you please let us see their proposed budget? One key issue with the SWAN proposal is that their pool would not open until 10am, which is completely unworkable anyway as our pool easily sees 200 users between 6am and 10am every day of the week.
Finally, as a Menlo Park tax payer, I do not see any need for cost recovery of the annual $650K. The pool was rebuilt 20 years ago, that investment is sunk cost at this point. If the City invests $650K a year and Team Sheeper spends > $3.5M to keep it running as a vibrant aquatic center, then this is a great way to stretch our city dollars and we are getting a great deal for our money.
Again, we have been fortunate to have Team Sheeper run an excellent program for the past 20 years, why mess with something that works?
Stephane Mouradian
Menlo Park, CA
