When the Village News hits the stands today, Standley Park Recreation Council will hold its monthly meeting, to which the community is invited but rarely shows up unless there is a complaint. While University City and La Jolla residents may be watching Judge Judy or Jim Lehrer on TV at 7 p.m., a group of volunteers will be gathering at Standley Park. Sarah Anderson, our hardworking center director of Standley Park, will be taking notes and consulting with her supervisor, Stacy McKenzie, another hardworking woman. Dr. Mark Sawyer, Standley Rec Council chair, will go over the agenda with the volunteers. One of the information items is the expansion of Swanson Pool next to the Standley Rec Center. Talk about a salmon swimming upstream. The expansion of Swanson will be that salmon swimming upstream now that Mayor Sanders has shared his FY09 for 2009 budget plan.
Sanders came to North University City to launch his budget plan on April 15, and it was a good opportunity for those of us in UC who are eager to hear how the budget money will be spent.
This was the third Sanders budget: 2007,’08 and this one, ’09, with emphasis on the $3.3 billion budget of ’09 protecting core services, public safety and reforms. According to the mayor, the budget is balanced, but on whose back is it balanced? Sanders brought his red pen to strike out aquatics and park and rec necessities.
Sawyer and Bob Ullmann, member at large, were also in attendance while many city “suits” were filling the chairs, including both the fire chief and police chief.
It was a civil discourse, and Sanders reminded us that “parks and recreation centers and library hours will be kept at current hours.” What he didn’t stress is the fact that park and rec hours were 64 in 2004 and have decreased to 48 hours the past couple of years. The bureaucrats never put a face on the budget, where those of us community volunteers in the trenches see the human factor being impacted. Just as city schoolteachers have had their lives disrupted with notices that those on the bottom rung of the ladder could lose their jobs, park and rec folks feel the same pain of not knowing their employment status. They can’t even get a list of issued start dates to see who may get the hatchet or be demoted. It will be worrisome for all of us as we wait until the budget is finalized in three months.
Is it true that half the city layoffs are from the Park and Recreation Department? Four district managers and ten assistant managers are proposed cuts. Those 14 people will get bumping rights, meaning they will take somebody else’s job ranked below them. Will University City and other communities see a new district manager area manager and center director? What does that mean to a community? Relationships and trust built over the years are out the window. Then the handful of district managers and assistants would have to double up on the areas to supervise.
Then let’s look at the pool situation. I was personally disappointed by the response of Stacy Lomedico, director of park and recreation, when asked by the mayor to discuss pool closures.
As the head of Park and Rec, she seemed rather cavalier in announcing pool closures. I wanted her to be a cheerleader for the pools and a critic of pool closures for three and a half months. I wanted her to say that this closure brings great pain to communities like University City’s Swanson Pool.
UC has a pool expansion committee chaired by Julia Cooper and supported by rec council members eager to make UC a community to which people with kids want to move. An expanded pool is an amenity that attracts families. Quietly the city budget designers, who may have pools of their own and not need the services a community pool provides, are eroding the budget for a service that you can’t put a price tag on for its value: learning to swim, being on a swim team, exercising and socializing, whether you are a child or senior or in between.
The mayor and city council have deep pockets for lawsuits, proposed city council raises and consultants who are not public servants but whose goal is to purely make money. Reducing pool manager times is deemed acceptable by our leaders. Put a face on this. A pool manager does more than just teach swimming. A pool manager provides happy times for kids and seniors. A pool manager gives many of us an opportunity to build self-esteem, to learn a lifetime skill that fights obesity and boredom.
The budget calls for three-fourths time for managers, 30 hours, with a one-quarter cut in pay. Ouch! Can a pool manager survive this financial cut if he/she has a family? Cut in staffing means a cut in programs and a cut in quality. Swimming lessons, where once 120 to 150 swimmers participated at Swanson, will decrease to maybe 75 swimmers. The water fitness ladies and men who socialize to stay fit will see that opportunity gone.
Cut hours for the pool? Cut hours for the pool managers? Come on, Mr. Mayor and Ms. Lomedico, representing our Park and Rec people and the hundreds of volunteers. Come on, city council public servants. Where are your priorities? Rather than city council folks espousing an increase, offer to join their other staff members like pool managers and take a one-quarter pay decrease. Better than that, revisit the budget and get it off the backs of Park and Rec.
If you are still with me, you really need to make the annual trek to San Diego City Council on April 30, from 6 to 9 p.m., to get our collective message across, something Turko on KUSI would say: “It ain’t right!” Apparently, that is the night the Park and Rec part of the budget will be discussed, and the public can make commentary.
If you’re shy, then just come and sit or write a commentary without giving a speech. We are in a crisis, I think, and it’s time again to speak up or let the leaders dictate their issues.