Two views on Menlo Children's Center project Two views on Menlo Children's Center project (November 03, 2004)

Mayor responds again on Children's Center

Editor:

Before calling into question my credibility because of my support of a $3.6 million Children's Center instead of a $7 million one, the public should know that the $6.1 million (advertised price at the time) child-care center scheme was voted in by the last council even after I pointed out that Menlo Park had never done an assessment of our community's child-care needs.

After my election, I was on a child-care task force that determined that:

a. Infant care was the most needed child-care in our community.

b. A majority of the parents who would use after-school care wanted after-school programs on their school site.

c. The 180-child pre-school and after-school care provided by the Burgess Park programs delivers neither of the above.

This task force, through the aid of a highly respected and experienced child-care professional and his company, ascertained that the old police station could be remodeled and made into a top-notch, efficient, and safe child-care facility for the Menlo Children's Center.

The charge by council candidate Kelly Fergusson at a League of Women Voter's Forum that a few localized bullets in the facility's basement would cause lead poisoning needs no response. Builders deal with hazard removal routinely and the center will be constructed in compliance with very tough codes.

The assertion by Ms. Fergusson and others that a new, specific facility was promised in Measure T is not supported by the facts.

In these economically challenging times citizens should be questioning the credibility of elected officials who design multi-million-dollar facilities without understanding the needs of the community. And then they should question candidates who would want to squander $3 million needlessly.

Lee Duboc
Mayor, Menlo Park

Councilman refreshes mayor's memory

Editor:

My colleague, Mayor Lee Duboc, is deeply confused about the Menlo Children's Center ("MCC") project. Menlo Park did not build the MCC facility advertised to voters as part of Measure T.

There was one and only one MCC project put before Measure-T voters -- a new, 14,000-square-foot children's center. On December 19, 2000, four colleagues and I authorized spending $860,000 to design and construct this new 14,000-square-foot facility. A scientific poll showed that MCC was the most popular facility among voters, so we delayed actual construction to include the project in the Measure T parks and recreational facilities bond measure to make the bond measure more attractive to voters.

Voters ratified Measure T, including the 14,000-square-foot MCC, with a solid 70 percent majority in November 2001. But Ms. Duboc and her new majority were elected shortly thereafter. Despite campaign promises to build the center, they halted the ongoing project and decided to renovate the old police station instead.

Ms. Duboc bases her revisionist history on a single postcard mailed to a subset of voters by a citizens committee. That is the only piece of literature distributed by any group, including the city, that mis-describes the MCC project. I still have an earlier revision of this postcard. It too says, "A new children's center to replace temporary portables."

Mayor Duboc's new explanation of the MCC project is entirely based on a documentation error, a simple editing error made by a graphic artist.

Paul Collacchi
Council member
Donohoe Street, Menlo Park

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