Send to:
Mayor Sanders JerrySanders@sandiego.gov
Councilmember Faulconer CouncilDistrict2@sandiego.gov

Subject:

Dear Mayor Sanders and Councilmember Faulconer (and your district representative if you entered the zip code above),

(The message below is just a template and we encourage you to edit it to better reflect your stance on this issue.)
I am writing to urge you to support the City staff’s recommendation to renew the lease for the Mission Bay Aquatic Center, on Santa Clara Point, in Mission Beach. As you know, the Mission Bay Aquatic Center is an educational program that has been jointly operated by the Associated Students of San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego on Santa Clara Point since 1975. Efforts to seek approval of a new lease following more than six years of exclusive negotiating rights granted by the City Council in 1999 were recently stalled when the Mission Bay Park Committee voted to recommend that the City initiate a Request for Proposals (RFP) process in lieu of granting a new lease to the universities. The Center has a proven and undisputed track record of quality service to a diverse cross-section of the San Diego community for the past 35 years that has included disadvantaged youth, persons with disabilities, school programs, camp programs and extensive educational offerings to university students, faculty, staff and alumni, and to a lesser extent – to members of the general public. No other potential offerors exist on the horizon that could provide comparable high quality services to these users at affordable prices better than San Diego’s two largest universities. The university partnership has spent more than $1.4 million in the physical facility since 1975 by renovating a dilapidated old boathouse, dock and seawall that the City could not afford to operate and transformed it into the world renowned facility that it is today. Proposed changes in the new lease will for the first time provide rent to the City for all non-collegiate users including use by members of the general public. Additionally, the universities’ student programs have agreed to continue to subsidize the future maintenance and improvements to the property at a minimum amount of $75,000 per year. I urge you to continue the legacy of affordable, accessible programs for the diverse users of Mission Bay Aquatic Center by getting the lease renewal process back on track and reject the suggestion that the City seek proposals from other potential bidders. To do otherwise will be a costly and unproductive burden on an already depleted City Staff, with no real prospects for providing another use for the leasehold premises that would exceed the value of the services proposed to be provided by the universities. The thousands of users of the Mission Bay Aquatic Center deserve your vote of confidence to continue to offer essential services and keep Mission Bay accessible to the community.

Sincerely,

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