The hurricane fence is still up, and the work crews continue to toil, but it looks as if the three pools in the new $6.8 million Burgess aquatics complex in Menlo Park will be ready to open next month, as planned.
Contrary to plan, however, when the deluxe aquatics center opens it will be operated and maintained by a private sports organization, Team Sheeper LLC, under a hurriedly approved agreement that has yet to disclose fees and hours of access for the public that paid for the complex.
The wisdom of the City Council’s unexpected transfer of the facilities from public to private, for-profit operation is subject to debate — and that debate is indeed raging in the community — but what can’t be disputed is that the decision to privatize the pool services was made quickly and with very little formal analysis and public scrutiny of the details.
The February 28 decision on a 3-2 vote — made just four weeks after the company’s owner, Tim Sheeper, publicly announced at a council meeting that he wanted to take over operation of the aquatics center — is one of several recent City Council actions that have raised questions about the council majority’s willingness to include the public in its decision-making process.
Another is the decision to enter negotiations with a private firm to build an 18-hole golf course and three playing fields at the 160-acre Bayfront Park, the largest expanse of open space in the city.
The proposal by Highlands Golf LLC emerged from the wings and into the public spotlight this fall, only a few weeks before the council was scheduled to vote on whether to begin the negotiations. It approved the talks on November 1.
Although possible changes in Bayfront Park’s use have been discussed at various levels for years, a specific golf-course proposal that had been developed in recent months caught many in the community by surprise. That includes members of the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission, traditionally the city’s early review panel for recreation matters.
“We were pretty much blindsided as a commission by the Highlands (golf) proposal,” said Heyward Robinson, a Parks and Recreation Commission member. “Certainly, the notion that there might be a golf course had been floated. … But to get a proposal developed (to such an extent) and moved along without our ever seeing it was a pretty big surprise.”
The pool and Bayfront Park decisions have large, vocal contingents of both supporters and detractors in the community. The division in the public sphere is one that is mirrored on the council: Mayor Nicholas Jellins and council members Mickie Winkler and Lee Duboc supported both actions; council members Kelly Fergusson and Andy Cohen opposed them.
And judging from recent letters to the council, the decisions have added fuel to the argument by some in the community that too much of the public’s business is being done, by intent or not, outside the view of the public eye — an assertion vigorously challenged by the council majority.
‘Bad practice, bad governance’
Behind the arguments of many critics of the Bayfront Park and aquatics program decisions is the assertion that better decisions are made through a careful, inclusive public vetting process.“The Menlo Park City Council seems hell bent on making deals away from the public view and ignoring anyone who objects,” resident Nancy Borgeson wrote in a letter to the council. “Rushing to privatize our parks and public facilities without public hearings and without input from the Parks and Recreation Commission before lease agreements are set is bad practice and bad governance.”
Ms. Borgeson’s letter reflects the views of many other letter writers and speakers at recent recreation commission and council meetings.
Councilwoman Winkler scoffs at accusations that the council acts in secret or in a manner that discourages the public from participating. And she defends the council’s record in adhering to the Brown Act, California’s public meeting law.
“The Brown Act defines what we can and cannot do. Whatever the Brown Act law stipulates is what we live by,” she said. “And we almost always go well beyond the law, broadcasting council agendas and proceedings to all who want to be notified.”
She noted, however, that “too much process, which goes well beyond the Brown Act, is inefficient and costly. It discourages creative small and medium-sized firms and enterprises from pursuing projects that would otherwise benefit Menlo Park and the community.”
It’s a sentiment echoed in part by Councilwoman Duboc. “Sometimes there seems to be a lack of understanding about what council members do,” she said. “There’s a fine line between endless, endless process and doing what I’m [supposed] to do, which is make decisions.
“I do try to explain myself when I make a decision … and I think I am, almost to a fault, open. I have done nothing in secrecy.”
Commission’s role
Richard Cline, a Parks and Recreation Commission member and declared candidate for the November City Council race, said he was caught by surprise last fall when the Bayfront Park proposal was put forth by the city staff. At the time, he chaired the commission, and asked the council for more time for the commission to hold public discussions on the proposal.The council delayed its deliberations, but only for a week, leaving commission members frustrated, he said.
“I don’t think anybody purposely circumvented the public process,” he said. “I don’t think it was anything malicious.
“But they moved ahead — they believed in what they were looking at. But some people said, ‘Hold on.'”
Mr. Cline attended the November 1 meeting at which the council voted to begin negotiations on the golf course proposal. The vote included Mayor Jellins’ stipulation that any negotiated agreement be reviewed by the recreation commission before it proceeds to the council for a vote.
Mr. Cline also believed that the council approved his request to allow the commission to review a range of Bayfront-related issues, including surveying the area’s playing fields to determine the need for more, and exploring options for park uses.
At the commission meeting later that month, the members formed a task force to do that, intending to hold three meetings before reporting to the council. That plan, he said, was curtailed by instruction from Curtis Brown, then director of community services, to limit the scope of the task force’s work to surveying the playing fields. Mr. Brown said that the staff would not support the effort with research and record-keeping during the meetings if the scope went beyond that, Mr. Cline said.
Ultimately, a staff member attended only the first meeting, and no minutes were taken at any of the meetings, he said, adding: “We were hamstrung from the beginning. And the city was shortchanged by it.” The limited scope also “limited the task force’s ability to get the job done, to do what needed to be done,” he said.
Mr. Cline said he was told by Mr. Brown that the limitation was by direction of the council, which led him to charge, at the February commission meeting, that “a council member, outside of a (public) meeting, … told staff not to support the task force in looking at alternatives for Bayfront Park.”
City Manager David Boesch said that the direction came from him, based on his interpretation of the council’s direction at the November 1 meeting. The minutes for that meeting don’t address the matter. Curtis Brown, reached at his new post in the community services department in San Bernardino, said he would not talk about any matter related to his Menlo Park work.
Bayfront Park record
Former council members Mary Jo Borak and Paul Collacchi have also joined the public process debate, criticizing the council for actions on a range of issues, including the golf course proposal.Ms. Borak said the public process was curtailed regarding the proposal, and that the public record is thin.
“Democracy works best when it’s an open, transparent government, … when people have good information and are aware of what’s being considered,” said Ms. Borak. The current council majority, she said, is not providing that transparency.
She and Mr. Collacchi were on the council when, in March 2002, it ruled out the possibility of a golf course at Bayfront Park. The decision came after a large majority of public speakers and letter writers came out against a golf course option floated as a potential revenue generator to help pay for park maintenance.
“The prior council was determined to keep Bayfront Park in open space,” Mr. Collacchi said.
Off the council since 2004, when he did not seek re-election, Mr. Collacchi criticized the council majority for a Bayfront Park decision-making process that he says lacks public scrutiny and accountability. He noted that the council gave staff direction to pursue active recreation options at the park during at least one study session and a special Saturday priority-setting meeting held last March — meetings for which the public record is hazy at best.
Mayor Jellins said it has long been the council’s practice “to give staff direction only in open session in (the council) chambers with a record kept of the proceedings.” He disputed the assertion that staff was given key direction regarding Bayfront Park recreation options outside the council chambers.
According to city staff, however, such direction was given at an April 2003 study session held in the City Hall conference room, for which there are no minutes or audiotape; and at the March 2005 priority-setting session held on a Saturday in a recreation center meeting room. There is an audiotape of that session, but no written record of the deliberations or specific direction.
Councilwoman Kelly Fergusson said she was frustrated by the lack of an official written record of the council’s discussions at the goal-setting session. For one thing, she said, she proposed that the city begin to explore county, state and federal grants for Bayfront Park so the council would have a better understanding of options that might keep the park financially healthy without development disruptive to the environment.
So far, staff has not explored the funding, she said. As time goes by, she worries that the direction will be forgotten, and an opportunity to avoid development of the park will be lost.
Councilman Andy Cohen, elected with Ms. Fergusson in 2004, proposed holding all study sessions in the council chambers, where they can be videotaped and recorded for a written record, according to City Manager David Boesch. The council agreed.
The pool question
The aquatics center debate is certain to heat up in light of last week’s development regarding the city’s agreement with Team Sheeper to operate the center. City Attorney Bill McClure reversed an earlier ruling that a use permit is not required if the city turns over operation of the aquatics center to a private firm — a ruling that means the issue must now go before the Planning Commission.“This is just another example of rushed, bad government leading to staff doing some sloppy things,” said Heyward Robinson, the recreation commissioner. “The council majority has a fair amount of responsibility for that,” he said, adding that the council’s “rush” to move the matters through process to action also adversely affected the Bayfront golf process.
His comment was made after Craig Price of Highlands Golf stated publicly that he doesn’t believe it’s possible to build playing fields on the park’s wetlands, as proposed. He put the wetlands element in his proposal because he hadn’t had the time to work out an alternative, and he knew that including playing fields in the plan was key to its acceptance by the council, he told the Almanac last week.
Councilwoman Winkler, who led the charge to come to an agreement with Team Sheeper, said the quick decision on pool operations was critical. With the city facing a projected $2.9 million budget shortfall, the council had to explore options for cutting costs, and that included delaying the scheduled April opening of the pool facility.
When Tim Sheeper, founder and head coach of the Team Sheeper competive sports program, came forward with his plan to assume operation of the center, covering all maintenance and utility costs, the city had to act or the opportunity would disappear, she said.
She also argued that once the pools are completed, the clock will begin ticking on the one-year warranties, so the pools need to be in use; and that the city needed to hire staff soon if it was going to operate the pool itself.
Many questions remain, however, and critics, including council members Fergusson and Cohen, say they should have been answered before the city signed a five-year lease with Team Sheeper. Those questions include how much access the public will have to the pools when they are being shared with Sheeper programs, which include activities for some 350 members.
The city had no local model to base the pool agreement on. No other Bay Area city has privatized its pools, according to Michael Taylor, acting director of community services.
Brown Act violation
It was recreation commissioner Robinson, a scientist at SRI, who last year criticized the city’s public process in making a key decision about the new child care center.Early last year, Mr. Robinson was trying to research the steps that led to the council’s October 2003, 3-2 decision to renovate the old police station at the Civic Center to house the child care program. The commission was to review the bids for remodeling the police station, he said, and he wanted to know why the city had abandoned its original plan to build an entirely new facility.
When he asked for records of the deliberations by a council-created task force formed to study options for housing the program, he learned that there were no minutes from the meetings. He also learned that the legal notices informing the public that the meetings were taking place were never issued, making the meetings illegal.
“If the council forms a task force, it’s governed by the Brown Act (California’s open meeting law),” Mr. Robinson said, a conclusion confirmed by City Attorney Bill McClure. Noting that no one from the public who wasn’t on the task force attended the meetings, he said the process leading to the facilities decision was flawed.
Mr. Robinson pointed out that a larger task force had studied the same question earlier, and came to the decision that the police station “is not suitable for a child care center, and needs to be demolished.” He questions the methodology used in a ranking system the task force employed, as well as conclusions drawn by the group’s child care professional, Chuck Bernstein.
“If the public were there … they might have challenged these things,” he said.
Although Mr. Robinson has publicly claimed that a request made at the first task force meeting that members not talk to the press was made by Councilwoman Duboc, who sat on the task force, Mr. Bernstein said that he was the one who made the request, which was agreed to by the group as a whole.
“It was kind of a defensive comment,” Mr. Bernstein explained last week. “I’m a full believer in full disclosure,” he said. But, he added, he was concerned that the task force — with members representing many interests as well as supporters and opponents of building an entirely new child care facility — could become politicized. That could happen, he said, if a member unhappy with the group’s progress went to the press to “try to get a story written slanted their way.”
But Mr. Robinson said the request, and agreement by the group, violated the spirit of the Brown Act, and that Councilwoman Duboc, who served for many years on the recreation commission before joining the council, should have known better.
Ms. Duboc acknowledged that the public notices should have been sent out for the meetings, but said she and others didn’t realize that at the time. She also defended the work of the task force, and its openness: “I would question anybody’s assertion that we did this task force (work) with any reason to keep it private.”
