From: moon
To: Public Comment
Subject: Agenda 10.1 (In case I don’t make it to the meeting) Date: Tuesday, February 21, 2023 3:33:15 PM
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Greetings Mayor, city council and staff
I am here to support a contract with EXOS to operate the Las Palmas Pool. When I came back to National City in 2014, Las Palmas Pool was my regular go to place to meet new friends and participate in water aerobics and lap swimming, at least 1.5 hours, 3 times a week. The staff was amazing and would go out of their way to project a community feeling with the pool users like organizing potlucks and other events. The teachers were knowledgeable, well-trained, and friendly.
During my growing up years in National City, I remember the pool being not so accessible to women and girls and we were not allowed on the high school swim team. Sometimes we’d go in the summer, but there weren’t classes or swim teams available to participate in.
I encourage the city to contract with EXOS and let Dillon, who was doing a great job being available, willing to talk, willing to use staff that are not busy and allow us to use the high dive. While there were lots of activities for my family and I to participate in, the physical structure of the pool was sketchy, but I’m not sure who’s fault that was. If the city was responsible for the physical structure, then for sure, I would not want them responsible for programming and staffing decisions.
If we want to hire high school kids to lifeguard, I see absolutely no reason they can not participate in the usual hiring protocol. It’s a nice idea to get local SuHi kids to lifeguard, but at the end of the day, I would want the most qualified candidates to watch us participants and keep us safe.
If it’s a question of funding, I suggest buying the two new foreign built, not American built, police motorcycles for $71,542.42 with their own NCPD budget, and not the general budget.
Thank you.
moon
Sent from my iPad