Dear Menlo Park City Council Members.

I am not able to attend the Council meeting this evening and I want to
provide you with my comments regarding the proposed changes at Encinal
School. I have been a resident on Felton Drive since the fall on 1981.
During that time my relationship with Encinal School and the local police
departments has been OK on issues with adult use of the playing fields.
While I have no complaints about the use of the playing fields by Encinal
School children, I am very concerned about the potential use of the playing
fields by adults outside normal school hours and weekends.

Adult use of the playing field on weekend evenings is a noise nuisance that
goes beyond what I find acceptable and the proposed upgrades to add an adult
sized playing field will only aggravate the situation. I have called
Atherton police on numerous occasions to complain about loud music and
obvious consumption of alcoholic beverages on the school grounds. The
Atherton police response has been satisfactory in most cases. With the
proposed plan to upgrade the playing fields, I do not see any attempt to
have the school district control public use of the grounds in this sort of
situation. I have also been concerned almost every year with the use of
fireworks on the existing playing fields around the Fourth of July. It seems
like the Atherton police are called to the playing fields every year to
control adults on the playing fields using it as a picnic ground and using
bottle rockets and other types of fireworks on the school grounds. The
proposed changes must come with a plan to manage the increased adult use of
the playing fields and their effect on the neighborhood due to increased
parking and traffic in the adjacent neighborhoods. I do not believe the
addition of 46 parking slots will be adequate to even cover the real needs
for parking before the playing fields are increased to adult size and used
for non-school athletic events.

I have not seen any comments about the increased liability of the school
district brought by adult activities on the playing field that are not under
the supervision of the school faculty. I am not aware of any plan by the
city of Menlo Park or Atherton to provide supervision of the playing fields
when they are being used by other than Encinal students.

It seems like these proposed changes are using funds voted to improve
schools to provide city recreation facilities. I don¹t think it is ethical
to use school money in any way to provide recreational facilities for the
general area that includes people who have no current connection with the
school. I do not believe the documentation on the bond measure that approved
the school funds adequately described the use of the money to build
essentially a public recreation facility on school grounds at tax payer
expense.

Traffic and parking in the neighborhood adjacent to Encinal school is
already a problem during school hours. I do not think the increased level of
both traffic and parking brought on by the proposed improvements will be
acceptable to anyone in the area around the school. The traffic at the
intersection of Encinal and Middlefield Road is already verging on being a
safety hazard during school hours with traffic entering Middlefield Road and
adding more traffic outside school hours will further complicate the problem
for neighborhood residents. I believe the current City Council was elected
on the basis of their stated intent to protect our Menlo Park neighborhoods
and this proposed change to Encinal School contradicts your campaign
promises if you allow this proposal to proceed.

Norman A. Scott
Menlo Park, CA
Received on Tue Apr 3 14:41:02 2007