On Jan. 31, almost 200 San Diegans (heretofore known as the peasants) showed up at a Park and Recreation Board meeting in Balboa Park to hear Ronne Froman, the mayor’s chief operational officer, and Rick Reynolds, assistant chief operating officer, share the mayor’s plans for the Park and Recreation Department: a breakup of the Park and Rec Department with a transfer of staff and responsibilities. Grounds maintenance from the Park and Recreation Department will move to the General Services Department, and the Park Planning and Development Division functions will be transferred to Engineering and Capital Projects and Planning and Community Investment. With Ms. Froman’s military background and Mayor Sanders’ police department background, this top-down management would work. However, we have a democracy that demands the people should have input and not be shut out of the public policy process.
Besides hearing the mayor’s plan for Park and Rec, Froman and Reynolds heard a passionate, public plea from District 6 City Councilwoman Donna Frye, who told the group that the executive branch did not involve the legislative branch, City Council representatives, in these monumental decisions to try a BPR (business process re-engineering) for Park and Rec. Transparent government was missing in this decision. Then City Attorney Mike Aguirre delivered a give-the-mayor’s-plan-a-chance-but-I’ve-got-your-back-San-Diego-in-case-this-plan-stinks talk. Finally, dozens and dozens of Park and Rec employees and volunteers spoke to the issue in almost spiritual pleas to keep Park and Rec intact.
Park and Rec is a people business, not a bean-counting business. Each speaker from across almost all communities in San Diego pleaded for open space, ground maintenance teams with a vested interest in the parks and the idea that 22,000 volunteers happily serve the parks and open space areas and should have some input.
Why hasn’t the mayor taken into consideration the opinions of the peasants/taxpayers who work and volunteer out of love of the outdoors? Why decimate a department of vital interest to the communities, where the heartbeat can be heard?
According to an article in Park and Rec E-News, a BPR (see above definition; there will be a test) is not reorganization or downsizing or improvement. It is a complete redesign, starting from ground zero, of how the city should provide services. If you were to look at the city as an unhealthy patient, then the Park and Rec Department is the heart of the body. Sanders’ plan is to cut the heart in half and attach it to other organs.
The Park and Recreation Department maintains approximately 400 parks throughout 39,000 acres, and the mayor wants to have the department broken up to save money and become more efficient. According to Tom Mullaney, a professional volunteer dedicated to keeping our parks up, running and growing, “This type of reorganization often fails to produce significant cost savings. When you transfer 600 park maintenance employees to another department, it is unrealistic to think the receiving department will get by without additional supervisors and managers. How will park planning, development, maintenance and recreation be coordinated when the people are spread among several departments? Planning functions need to work closely with the implementation functions. This means management-worker teams under a common boss. Ellen Oppenheim reconstituted the Park and Rec Department after the splitting-up approach was tried a few years ago and didn’t work.”
We have three major parks that draw tourists and locals: Mission Bay, Balboa Park, and Mission Trails Regional Park. We have open space like Marian Bear Memorial Park and Rose Canyon Open Space, among four others. Beaches come under the Park and Rec aegis. There are 51 recreation centers, including Standley Park and Doyle Park and soon-to-be Nobel Park.
For golfers, there are Torrey Pines, Balboa and Mission Bay municipal courses. Thirteen swimming pools, including Swanson Pool, provide lessons, water safety classes, youth, adult, senior, and disabled programs ” unless they are closed to save money, the way Swanson will be, beginning Feb. 19, for three months. As a small example of mismanagement of funds in the city that hits close to home, our councilman cannot find the $80,000 to keep Swanson open to serve the community, but in a closed session he found $149,000 to hire an outside attorney to represent the city in the lawsuit over the proposed Regents Road Bridge. He felt that our city attorney, paid to do this work, wouldn’t be the right choice since the city attorney might be philosophically opposed to the proposed Regents Road Bridge. I would oppose outside counsel if the city attorney were for the bridge because that money would be better spent in keeping a few pools open for a lot of swimmers, especially this time when money is tight. This choice is a questionable use of taxpayer money on a very heated and partisan issue.
Park and Rec provides senior services, tennis, skate parks, dog off-leash parks, fishing at O.B. pier and P.B. and Chollas Lake, capital improvement projects, joint use with schools like Doyle and Spreckels and Standley. It’s cradle-to-grave, because even Mt. Hope Cemetery ” where Kate Sessions is buried ” is under Park and Rec. She is probably turning over in her grave right now.
Mullaney also shared some information that make us peasants question the leadership in City Hall.
“Be aware of the city staff’s proposal to count non-park improvements, such as tennis court lights, as ‘enhancements,’ which are substitutes for park acreage. Should we assume 500 watts equals 1/10 acre? Just as amazing is the proposal for “equivalencies” in which resource-based parks, which serve primarily a citywide and regionwide purpose, would be counted as fulfilling part of the requirements for neighborhood and community parks. Sorry, the skinny little section of Balboa Park along Sixth Avenue isn’t very useful for park functions. It is quite disturbing to see charts which show large parts of Balboa Park being designated as neighborhood and community parks for Uptown, North Park and Golden Hill. One of the effects would be to lower Development Impact Fees, so there would be less money overall. Then the reduced DIF money that was available would be shifted from community facilities to Balboa Park and Mission Bay Park for projects that should be funded from other sources.”
The mayor has come and the mayor will go, but splitting up a vital organ like the heart of our city government into two departments does not make sense.
Contact your mayor and all the council representatives. Contact Andy Field at [email protected] before Feb. 15, the date of the next Park and Recreation Board meeting. As one of the Park and Rec board volunteers said, “The horse is out of the barn.” Maybe, just maybe, with an outcry from the citizens, Park and Rec can keep its department and the horse can be led back to the barn.