I suppose that $20 million is as good a reason as any to fire this blog back up.
Although I missed Monday night’s “sometimes-acrimonious debate” about a proposed Parks & Recreation bond for this November’s ballot, I was deeply involved in what was definitely not what today’s N&R editorial describes as a “faulty process of bringing projects to a referendum“.
As chair of Greensboro’s P&R Commission, I formed a subcommittee back in, I believe it was, February to help prioritize the department’s Capitol Improvement Project (CIP) for the coming decade. Our charge, as handed down from the city manager and budgeting departments, was to define P&R’s needs for possible inclusion in - and this is important - 2010 and 2012 - referenda.
The list of possible needs and wants presented by the P&R staff to our subcommittee was exhaustive and - all told - came in around $80M. Our task was to whittle this down into priority-driven, bite-sized chunks. Which we did. And after each of two “whittlings”, the subcommittee’s work was presented to the entire Commission and voted upon. Both passed, unanimously, and we forwarded them up the ladder for consideration by the manager’s office.
There was much discussion surrounding a new, indoor, competitive swimming pool during the subcommittee’s work. Led by Greensboro Sports Commission head and P&R Commissioner Marc Bush, Marc made strong arguments for the benefits - both social and economic - of trying, once again, to get the public behind the $10M project.
Others, including myself, agreed that such a facility is important, but also argued that it was difficult to support such an expenditure when more basic needs were pressing. I submitted that if the foundation to my house was crumbling, I would be thought of as somehow defective if I chose to spend money on a new Jacuzzi tub rather than fix my foundation.
In the end, a compromise was reached and we placed various projects in both the 2010 and 2012 bond buckets. The $10M pool was a part of the 2010 proposal but it came with a caveat: over the next two years, we directed the staff to enter into an intensive public input process that would afford the issue a complete airing. We also agreed that, in order to guage support and perhaps help with funding, the local swimming community should be asked to form a public/private partnership - ala the Greensboro Youth Soccer Association model - to perhaps shoulder some of the costs.
Commission members vocalized their committment to take a leadership role in championing the agreed-to CIPs over the coming months and years. After all, we had plenty of time for all this. We were talking about 2010 and 2012. Or we thought we were.
Two weeks ago I received an email indicating that the city manager’s office had decided to go ahead and include a $20M bond for this year’s ballot. This was a surprise to everyone - including the P&R staff. Even though I had suggested during a previous P&R meeting that because our needs where so great in the area of facility re-investment, it would be a good idea to request the Manager’s office to give us a slot this year, I was told - in no uncertain terms - that this year was NOT our turn. It was the Transportation Department’s turn at the ballot.
Emails were sent in an attempt to re-convene the P&R’s CIP subcommittee to mull over this new development, but in the end, things moved too quickly and we never got back together in advance of Director Bonnie Kuester’s presentation to Council. The P&R staff was forced to hurriedly compile a list of needs totalling $20M to be included in November’s bond offering. When the list was sent out to me, it included mostly the “foundation repair” stuff that was identified for 2010 inclusion.
There was no mention of a swim center, and I was pleased about that, because our plan - as mentioned above - was to engage the public and build support for the project over a two year period. And even at that, thought I, the pool would be a hard sell because it has been rejected twice before by the voters. But at least we would have a shot at it if it was seen that P&R had done some serious planning, enlisted the support of the swimming community, and created a good case for such an expenditure.
So, imagine the surprise during Wednesday night’s P&R Commission meeting when the City Council’s 5-4 decision to include $10M for the pool was given to us. One Commissioner questioned why the Council, who charged the Commission with prioritizing the CIP, would essentially ignore our work and tell us to “shove it”. I somewhat concured and suggested that throwing out our prioritization could seriously undermine the Commission’s committment to help promote the bonds as we envisioned them.
I don’t know where this whole pool thing is headed, but I do know that some of our City Council is questioning the professionalism of Bonnie Kuester and her staff because they were not impressed with the staff’s presentation on the $20M bond proposal. One thing I can tell you though: Our P&R staff did what they were asked to do, namely, identify and plan the projects that might appear on 2010 and 2012 referenda. They did that job professionally, diligently and thoroughly. 2008 was NEVER mentioned as a possibility.
No department should be expected to prepare and lay out the particulars of a $20M expenditure on a week’s notice. Such expectations, and resulting criticisms, are unfair and reflect badly - not on the P&R Department - but on those leveling the criticisms.
