What Should Menlo Park Do About Child Care?
As Menlo Park works to cut its subsidy of the city-run child care center in the Civic Center complex, it’s become clear to everyone involved that the program’s management could be more efficient. What that should mean for the program’s future is now being hotly debated. While parents and council members disagree on whether the preschool child care program is among the services the city should subsidize, both groups have pointed to sloppy management as the source of much of the consternation over the program. Parents and city staff members argue that by making a few operational changes, the city could dramatically cut its subsidy of the preschool program. But several council members say they have lost faith in the city’s ability to run the program. Mismanaged? Is the program mismanaged? That’s the case several parents made at a May 5 City Council meeting, protesting an increase in child care fees. Councilwoman Kelly Fergusson, the lone council member to voice support for a continued hef
