Dear Menlo Park City Council Members,
Thank you for requesting input from the community regarding the opportunity to build a new library in Burgess Park and Belle
Haven. I fully support the program to evaluate both Menlo Park libraries and move ahead with plans to redesign and rebuild the
libraries and accept funding from John Arrillaga for the Burgess Park Library Location. I support this for the following reasons:
· A great, modern library can be used by all members of the community. This is a place where seniors, children, teenagers and
adults all come together to learn new things, to meet and to be inspired. It would be wonderful to have a world class library in
our city where this type of communication, community and learning could occur.
· John Arrillaga is a proven partner and a wonderful person to have involved in a project. The Burgess Gym and Burgess Community
Center is a stunning and functional facility. This facility was built with a great design and lasting, attractive materials. It
was also built in a reasonable timeframe. It still looks fantastic several years later as do many of the Arrillaga’s facilities on
the Stanford Campus. It seems completely reasonable to expect Mr. Arrillaga to bring his extensive expertise to this new project
and produce a similar quality of construction and timeframe to complete.
· If this project is not done now, it most likely will not be able to be completed anytime in the short term. The additional money
needed to complete the project will most likely render it unreasonable.
This is a wonderful opportunity for Menlo Park. I hope that our community will be able to benefit from this incredible and
generous offer.
Shari Conrad
1031 Del Norte Ave
Menlo Park
