Parks and Recreation System Plan Reactions?

Last night there was a meeting at Phalen Recreation Center to discuss
the Parks and Recreation Department system plan. I know this plan has some
significant changes for the east side - a couple being the possible closing
of the two recreation centers - Duluth & Case and Hayden Heights.

Any member of the forum who could share the resident feedback from last
night's meeting?

This meeting one of many wrapping up the year-long consultant driven system
planning process that will lead future decision-making by the Department.
The Plan will serve as the tool for making decisions that are in the best
interest of the city and the residents. A draft of the plan has been
presented to the City Council, Parks Commission and Mayor's Office for
comments and is now beginning presented to the community for discussion and
possible tweaking.

The plan can be found on the city web site at:
http://www.stpaul.gov/index.aspx?nid=3845

Jonathan Carter
Payne Phalen

Jonathan,

There were about 150 people at last night's meeting, almost all East Side
residents upset about the closing of three MORE East Side rec centers. It was
good that the the format of the meeting was changed allowing people to speak,
instead of the orignal format where people were only allowed to look at the
Plan and submit written comments.

The overriding sentiment at the meeting is that the East Side is bearing an
unfair portion of the reduction of services from Parks and Rec driven by the
need to reduce costs. The methodolgy used by the consultants and the city was
questioned, as "need" was defined as "current usage". In other parts of the
city, many of the rec centers have longer hours and much more programming,
hence they have higher rates of usage-- which was then translated into a higher
need.

The East Side is home to a very high percentage of the city's children; one in
three East Side residents is under 18. These children and their families live
in small houses with small yards, with a higher density than most other areas.
They need places to go and room to play; otherwise they will be roaming the
streets getting into trouble. We are in a vicious circle with parks and rec
centers; staffing and programming are cut, which lowers current usage -- this
is read as "there is little need here".

There was also a substantial contigent from the senior programs at Conway;
keeping our seniors active and connected to the neighborhood is a good thing.

I fear people are pretty cynical about our ability to influence the outcome of
the proposals on the rec center closings. Although the staff said nothing has
been finalized and no dates have been set, one resident described looking out
his kitchen window to see the unheralded bulldozing of the Prosperity rec
center.

There were also some people there to try to get more citizen involvement in
making sure our tax money is being well spent on the Payne Maryland project and
that the "private partners" are not benefitting at public expense. The
combination of services is objectionable to many, the church/state issue and
all.

Laurie Krivitz
Payne Phalen resident

I don't have all of the notes from last night in front of me, but there was
considerable concern from East Side residents about the potential loss of
more facilities on the East Side.

First off there is no time line on any of this and nothing has been
approved.... but... once plans get in action they have a way of happening so if
you are concerned you need to get your feedback to your elected officials.

1. There is great concern that the closing of Duluth Case would leave kids
in that area with no rec centers with adult supervision. The particular
concern is that going to Phalen or Arlington (Payne/Maryland) is to long of
a distance. The plan suggests that there would be improved athletic fields
at the site, and restroom facilities, which would be good for organized
sports; but no on-site recreation staff.

2. There was assurance from the Parks Department that nothing would happen
at Hayden Heights until some yet undetermined new facility was developed.
There was no idea where this new potential facility would be located or
what services it would have... but clearly the plan suggests that the existing
building is to be phased out at some time. Park's staff did hedge their
assurance by saying as long as there was no unexpected maintenance cost at
H.H. that could pull the plug on the building early.

3. The plan for Conway is to find some "partner" organization that may be
interested in running the building. Much like the Boys and Girls Clubs
have taken over several facilities, that would be the goal for Conway.

4. Residents raised a good deal of concern about the loss of Prosperity Rec
Center that happen in the last year (building demo'ed) and the phasing out
of Wilder, which has left only two hours of service a day four days a week
at that site.

5. The plans goal is ultimately to have the City running only 19
significant community centers (like North Dale, or Battle Creek or Linwood) and
very
few smaller rec centers, with most of those kinds of buildings being
managed by someone other than the City (non-profit youth org.). One
mega-center
is on the drawing board for Payne/Maryland and there was some neighbors at
the meeting who would rather not see Arlington turned into a mega-center.

My personal comment/opinion...

Much of the conflict with this is that is not what traditionally East Side
residents have wanted. There is a tendency to be comfortable with smaller,
closer to home facilities. The arguments of most residents is that I
would rather have my kids be able to walk somewhere close to home, than for me
to drive them to the mega-facility and for many of the residents close to
the proposed mega-facility they aren't to crazy about seeing someone else's
kids at the neighborhood park.... rather see the neighborhood kids and get
to know them.

This plan really hit me with being almost the same as what has happened to
the East Side with the recent batch of school closings. For thirty years
the school district has been developing magnet schools that draw kids from
all over the district. On the East Side, many parents continued to support
neighborhood schools where most kids walk to school. Finally in this last
year the district decided to stop running elementary schools with less
than 500 or so students (it just didn't work economically) and a batch of East
Side Schools were wiped out. What we are hearing from the Parks Department
is the same thing. They intend to only run multi-service facilities.
They can't justify staffing smaller facilities.

No answers there... just my observation.

For those of you who don't know me, I am a staff person with the District 2
Community Council and last night District 2 and District 5 asked the Parks
Department to respond publicly to neighbors concerns, rather than having
an "open house" to look at the plans as anticipated by the Parks Department.
So, it was an interested an spirited discussion with maybe 150 residents.

Chuck Repke

Rest of post

Please go to the link below and submit your comments about the plan

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NGPTQY2

This is the link to the planning page for the St Paul Parks and Rec.
http://www.stpaul.gov/index.aspx?NID=3845

If the contents of the email I received below were submitted by the person who
sent this email to me I would be grateful.

We MUST respond or they will take away our rec centers.

Respectfully Yours

Jerald V Bottcher

Saint Paul, MN 55106
<email obscured>

Rest of post

-----Original Message-----
From: stpaul-eastside@forums.e-democracy.org
[mailto:stpaul-eastside@forums.e-democracy.org] On Behalf Of Laurie Krivitz
Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2010 10:29 AM
To: stpaul-eastside@forums.e-democracy.org
Subject: Re: [Eastside] Parks and Recreation System Plan Reactions?

Jonathan,

There were about 150 people at last night's meeting, almost all East Side
residents upset about the closing of three MORE East Side rec centers. It was
good that the the format of the meeting was changed allowing people to speak,
instead of the orignal format where people were only allowed to look at the
Plan and submit written comments.

The overriding sentiment at the meeting is that the East Side is bearing an
unfair portion of the reduction of services from Parks and Rec driven by the
need to reduce costs. The methodolgy used by the consultants and the city was
questioned, as "need" was defined as "current usage". In other parts of the
city, many of the rec centers have longer hours and much more programming,
hence they have higher rates of usage-- which was then translated into a higher
need.

The East Side is home to a very high percentage of the city's children; one in
three East Side residents is under 18. These children and their families live
in small houses with small yards, with a higher density than most other areas.
They need places to go and room to play; otherwise they will be roaming the
streets getting into trouble. We are in a vicious circle with parks and rec
centers; staffing and programming are cut, which lowers current usage -- this
is read as "there is little need here".

There was also a substantial contigent from the senior programs at Conway;
keeping our seniors active and connected to the neighborhood is a good thing.

I fear people are pretty cynical about our ability to influence the outcome of
the proposals on the rec center closings. Although the staff said nothing has
been finalized and no dates have been set, one resident described looking out
his kitchen window to see the unheralded bulldozing of the Prosperity rec
center.

There were also some people there to try to get more citizen involvement in
making sure our tax money is being well spent on the Payne Maryland project and
that the "private partners" are not benefitting at public expense. The
combination of services is objectionable to many, the church/state issue and
all.

Laurie Krivitz
Payne Phalen resident

Laurie Krivitz
Eastside, St. Paul
About Laurie Krivitz: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/1Nq2ljK6DCuOO77AFXuwIX

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The proposals for the Parks and Recreation System are flawed and suburb
styled. The situation is similar to the trends in the school district
where neighborhood schools are being aggregated to mimic changing
demographics. The demographics argument fails for Recreation Centers
since these centers are not age dependent. All demographics potentially
could (should ;-) use these facilities.

Another oddity of these proposals is the effect on St. Paul's Livability
status. By aggregating these facilities and moving from a neighborhood
model, we encourage the use of motorized vehicles to access them. One
of the major features of a livable place is the provision of our basic
needs within a walkable distance from our homes.

I would like to see the strategy used by wireless companies to provide
phone coverage. Each resident of a neighborhood needs to have coverage
for passive park space, programmable recreation space, regional
specialized community parks/centers. A livable place needs to have
everything available to each resident regardless of mobility potential
otherwise we become a suburb where uses are highly segregated.

Ed Davis
as a participant of the forum

On 11/9/2010 10:29 AM, Laurie Krivitz wrote:
> Jonathan,
>
>
>
> There were about 150 people at last night's meeting, almost all East Side
residents upset about the closing of three MORE East Side rec centers. It was
good that the the format of the meeting was changed allowing people to speak,
instead of the orignal format where people were only allowed to look at the
Plan and submit written comments.
>
> The overriding sentiment at the meeting is that the East Side is bearing an
unfair portion of the reduction of services from Parks and Rec driven by the
need to reduce costs. The methodolgy used by the consultants and the city was
questioned, as "need" was defined as "current usage". In other parts of the
city, many of the rec centers have longer hours and much more programming,
hence they have higher rates of usage-- which was then translated into a higher
need.
>
>
>
> The East Side is home to a very high percentage of the city's children; one
in three East Side residents is under 18. These children and their families
live in small houses with small yards, with a higher density than most other
areas. They need places to go and room to play; otherwise they will be roaming
the streets getting into trouble. We are in a vicious circle with parks and
rec centers; staffing and programming are cut, which lowers current usage --
this is read as "there is little need here".
>
>
>
> There was also a substantial contigent from the senior programs at Conway;
keeping our seniors active and connected to the neighborhood is a good thing.
>
>
>
> I fear people are pretty cynical about our ability to influence the outcome
of the proposals on the rec center closings. Although the staff said nothing
has been finalized and no dates have been set, one resident described looking
out his kitchen window to see the unheralded bulldozing of the Prosperity rec
center.
>
>
>
> There were also some people there to try to get more citizen involvement in
making sure our tax money is being well spent on the Payne Maryland project and
that the "private partners" are not benefitting at public expense. The
combination of services is objectionable to many, the church/state issue and
all.
>
>
>
> Laurie Krivitz
> Payne Phalen resident
>
> Laurie Krivitz
> Eastside, St. Paul
> About Laurie Krivitz: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/1Nq2ljK6DCuOO77AFXuwIX
>
> View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc:
> http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/4Vp2ZTEhzLT0KASDQ8wQbS
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> To post, e-mail: stpaul-eastside@forums.e-democracy.org or "Reply-to-All"
to post publicly.
> To leave or for daily digest, type "unsubscribe" OR "digest on" in subject
instead.
>
> Forum home: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/stpaul-eastside
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> Need help? http://e-democracy.org/support Hosting thanks:
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