To the City Council members,
I hope this feedback will be of interest to you even though Im a resident of Palo Alto. Based on anecdotal evidence, I think it reflects the feelings of many Menlo Park residents as well.
Ive been swimming at Burgess Pool for decades, and, now a senior citizen, I’ve benefited from it greatly both physically and socially, as I see the same people there all the time. I have trouble getting going very early in the morning and I often have appointments later in the day, so I swim in mid morning, which will not be possible under Burgesss new schedule.
I used to swim at Rinconada, but after one swim at Burgess I was “married” to that pool, which I consider far superior. And the Belle Haven pool is not conveniently located for me. Ive discussed Belle Haven with other Burgess swimmers, and none of them are interested swimming there. I doubt that changing your schedule to entice more swimmers to go to Belle Haven will be a successful approach. You may instead lose pool members.
Your revised schedule has turned my world upside down. Even though Burgess recently increased my fee as a non-resident, I would happily pay even more to be able to swim at Burgess starting around 10 or 10:30 AM. I suspect that if keeping the pool hours as they have been would necessitate increasing the fee for residents as well, they would oblige.
I hope you find a better solution to the financial difficulty of keeping the Burgess pool hours unchanged.
Respectfully,
Caroline Rose
Palo Alto
650-424-9100
