Menlo hires new director of recreation and parks

**She will lead effort to restructure city's recreation program.

As Menlo Park's new community resources director Suzanne Ota begins to overhaul the city's unwieldy recreation department, her first task is to hire two mid-level managers to supervise the children and adult recreation programs, said City Manager Jan Dolan.

Ms. Ota is scheduled to move into the director's office on March 30 -- nearly two years after Mary Dupen resigned from the position in July 1996. She brings with her 25 years of experience in local government.

She has relocated to the Menlo Park area from Southern California, where she spent the last five years as community services director in Rancho Cucamonga, a city with a population of 118,000.

Following Ms. Dupen's departure, the city hired a consultant to evaluate Menlo Park's recreation department. The study, completed last July by David M. Griffith and Associates, suggested creating two new management positions to eliminate the problem of maverick recreation center directors who run programs with little or no supervision.

Once these new positions have been filled, Ms. Ota will head the management team that will restructure the recreation department, which has more programs and participants than it can house west of the Bayshore freeway, and too few east of the freeway in the under-used facilities and under-served community of Belle Haven.

"We are going to undertake a major study of all recreation facilities and play fields," Ms. Dolan said. She estimated that the study will be completed in 18 months.