COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA PUBLIC HEARING AND PUBLIC MEETING BEFORE THE SPECIAL COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PARKS, RECREATION AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS - - - Room 400, City Hall Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Thursday, November 12, 1998 2:11 p.m. - - - Resolution No. 980687 - Authorizing the Special Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs to hold hearings and to conduct a full review of the operations and maintenance of the Recreation Department's facilities, including, but not limited to, types of programs, number of youths and adults served, hours of operation, conditions of facilities and equipment, current funding levels for programs, personnel, materials, supplies and equipment, and accountability and performance measures in place for both programs and maintenance staff; and further authorizing the committee to evaluate programs and maintenance procedures available in other comparable municipalities, recreation departments, and to make recommendations on policies and funding changes. PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER, Chair COUNCILWOMAN JOAN KRAJEWSKI COUNCILMAN JAMES KENNEY COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILMAN RICHARD T. MARIANO COUNCILMAN FRANK RIZZO - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Registered Professional Reporters Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 2 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 I N D E X Commissioner Michael DiBerardinis . . . . . . Philadelphia Recreation Department 5 Deputy Commissioner Carol Rice. . . . . . . . 34 6 Philadelphia Recreation Department 7 Tom Fox, Maintenance Director . . . . . . . . 54 Philadelphia Recreation Department 8 Eric Iffrig, Director of Planning . . . . . . 70 Philadelphia Recreation Department J. Blaine Bonham, Jr., Vice President . . . . 71 Philadelphia Horticultural Society Maitreyi Reoy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 Program Manager for Philadelphia Green Bonnie Raines, Coordinator. . . . . . . . . . 81 After-School Program, Initiative of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth Michael McCrea, President . . . . . . . . . . 90 Philadelphia Recreational Advisory Council Leroy Simmons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Center Germantown Council John Lafley, Executive Director . . . . . . . 108 YMCA on Green Street John Sorello, Chairman. . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Friends of Vernon Park Curtis McAllister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 President of the Stenton Park Advisory Council John Helman, President. . . . . . . . . . . . 116 Grays Ferry Youth Access Center Harold Fulton, Volunteer. . . . . . . . . . . 123 Lonnie Young Rec Center 3 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 (Index, cont'd.) Gloria Johnson, President . . . . . . . . . . 129 Friends of Parkside-Evans Bob Turino, President . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Upper Roxborough Civic Association Stephanie Andrews, Director . . . . . . . . . 145 Friends of Philadelphia Parks Kathleen Paulmier, Co-clerk . . . . . . . . . 148 Greater Germantown Recreation Network Tom Grabe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Germantown Monthly Meeting Sally Kennedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 Greater Germantown Recreation Network Greg Paulmier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Democratic Ward Leader, Germantown Doris Gwaltney, Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 Carroll Park Neighbors Steering Committee Bertha Parker, Secretary. . . . . . . . . . . 187 Friends of Carroll Park Fred Mauer, Private Citizen . . . . . . . . . 188 Yvonne Downey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Joan Henry Ken Knight Knight Family of the Dell East John Boyce, President . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 Friends of Gorgus Park Warren Haskins, General Manager, Dell East 212 4 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 P R O C E E D I N G S
Good afternoon. My name is Councilwoman Donna Reed-Miller, Chair of the Special Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. The public hearing is now in session. The committee members in attendance this afternoon are: To my left, Council James Kenney; Councilman Rick Mariano; and to my right, Councilwoman Joan Krajewski; and a special appointee this afternoon to this committee, Councilman Michael Nutter. Will the clerk please read the title of the bill.
The title of the bill is Resolution No. 980687, authorizing the Special Committee on Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs to hold hearings and to conduct a full review of the operations and maintenance of the Recreation Department's facilities, including, but not limited to, types of programs, number of youths and adults served, hours of operation, conditions of facilities and equipment, current funding levels for programs, personnel, materials, 5 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 supplies and equipment, and accountability and performance measures in place for both programs and maintenance staff; and further authorizing the committee to evaluate programs and maintenance procedures available in other comparable municipalities, recreation departments, and to make recommendations on policies and funding changes. Thank you.
Before we get started, Councilman Nutter would like to make a brief statement, and any other members of the committee can also do that.
Thank you, Madame Chair. Just very briefly, the primary purpose of this resolution and today's public hearing, and there may be others follow up today, depending on how far we get, I think I can speak not only on behalf of myself but for many members of the Council that we are deeply concerned about the Recreation Department, we care about its programs, we care about its facilities, and whether on the operating side of the budget or the capital side 6 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 of the budget, try to do the best we can to support the Department. The Department has been certainly very cooperative in this process, and today's hearing is for the purpose of working with the Department. This is not an inquisition, this the not for the purpose of trying to do something other than something positive with and for the Recreation Department. It has done well in the past, in our view, with, at times, limited resources. And we would like to figure out responsibly how to in a targeted fashion increase those resources and only improve the welfare of these recreation facilities and the programs they provide for the young and not so young, and that was the reason the introduction of the resolution. It received tremendous support from my colleagues. And that is -- certainly for myself, at least -- the tone that I would like to take today. There may be things that come up that some might not be too pleased with, and we will ask questions. At times, they may be tough questions but they are only for the purpose of getting to the truth and then trying to figure out how to 7 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 make things better going forward. So I appreciate the Chair's indulgence, and I look forward to hearing the testimony of the Commissioner and any members of the public who really do care about recreation in Philadelphia. Thank you, Madame Chair.
And we care about the employees also, as am reminded by Councilwoman Krajewski. They are also hard-working and also at times under very difficult circumstance. So there is, I believe, on both sides of this room today, people have one primary goal, and that is the support of the Department of Recreation, commissioners and deputy commissioners, and workers to make system as best as it possibly can be. None of us will sit here and say that it is perfect, but it has come a long way over the past six or seven years, and we'll hear more about it in today's testimony. Thank you, Madame Chair.
Thank you Councilman, Nutter. 8 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 And Councilman Nutter has basically expressed the views and sentiments that are part of the Recreation and Cultural Affairs Committee and other members of City Council. I just want to note for the record that we've been joined by Councilman Frank Rizzo who's also a member of this committee. There's a prepared list of testifiers. And the first on our list is Recreation Commissioner Mike DiBerardinis and anyone you want to bring with you. For all testifiers, when you come to the table, please speak directly into the mike, spell your last name for record purposes, and, you know, you can say any other identifying information you'd like to give us. (Mike DiBerardinis and other Rec. Dept. ) COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Good afternoon. My name is Mike DiBerardinis, D-I- capital B -E-R-A-R-D-I-N-I-S. I'm the Recreation Commissioner for the City. And with me, to my right is Maintenance Director Tom Fox, Deputy Program Commissioner 9 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Carol Rice, Deputy Program Commissioner for Program Development, Bill Carapucci, and Joanne Mangano, who's are Administrative Service Manager, and Eric Iffrig, who's the head of Planning and Construction Division. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Miller and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today on the day-to-day operations of the Recreation Department and review with you the changes and gains we have made in meeting the needs of our city's neighborhoods and its children. In 1993, the Department adopted a new broader mission statement. We dedicated ourselves to invest not only in our employees, but also challenged ourselves to expand and update our core services throughout the City, with the particular emphasis on underserved communities. We also reaffirmed our commitment to listen to both staff and the community to improve our operations. We challenged ourselves to engage with community-based organizations, major institutions, and corporations in serving our young people and to find ways to build real 10 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 prevention alternatives. During the first years of the Rendell administration, we focussed on expanding our organized sports programs across the City and reintroducing them to the neighborhoods where they had disappeared over time. We enlisted the support of our professional sports teams, local companies, a new cadre of volunteers, and expanded support of our longtime adult volunteers, and, I must say, as well as support from individual Councilpeople in fund-raising efforts, and we appreciate that as well. That effort over the course of about two and a half years expanded organized youth opportunities to some 25,000 new organized slots for young people. Some of the results of that work in 1992 and '93, we radically expanded our pool season, with the help of many of Philadelphia's bigger corporations. In 1994, we raised a lot less money because we had pledged to run the pools on our operating budget and not look to the companies for that support, but we raised a smaller amount of money and opened up a brand-new program called "Swim for Life," which is a 11 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 developmental and competitive swimming program that each year now serves 375 participants over the summer. It is worth noting that this summer, we had the longest swim season in the Department's history. In 1994, we also put together a community corporate and department alliance where we expanded our ice rink season from 9 weeks to four weeks and substantially increased both the 12 time for free skating and organized sports 13 activities. 14 I'll also say that through that effort, we have significantly increased the day-to-day maintenance and look at our five ice rinks around the City. And, once again, we had support from this Council in that effort.
During the last three years, the Department has made expansion of cultural programs a priority. In addition to adding the Mural Arts Program to the Department, we have increased the availability of both performing and visual arts to every neighborhood in the City. We have raised over $740,000 that's 12 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 outside of our operating budget, that's public and private fund-raising for the Mural Arts Program, and we have raised $200,000 for the Cultural Arts Program. As a result of both City operating dollars and these fund-raising efforts, there are now 36 mural workshops as part of our after-school program. Our Environmental Program is now a part of our after-school program as well. We have sites that are involved in 11 our dance initiative, and we have doubled the 12 number of children participating in performing 13 arts programs over the last 2 years, from 2,136 to 14 5,516 participants per week. Also during this 15 time, with the direction and support of City 16 Council and the administration, a major capital 17 investment program was begun. 18 In 1992, when I was appointed 19 commissioner, we had 70 centers with leaky roofs 20 that needed to be renovated, our outdoor lighting 21 system was in such disrepair that 12 light poles, 22 those 40-foot light poles, fell between July 1991 and July 1992. In the last five years, $61 million have been invested in our system in capital investment. Roofs and heaters, outdoor 13 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 lighting systems, as well as courts, play equipment, and parks, have been renovated and upgraded. We have new facilities at Hawthorne Recreation Center, at the Mander Pool, and at Fox Chase Gymnasium. 8 million reconstruction project at Lonnie Young. That's now in the design phase. Our Maintenance Division has played a critical role in this program expansion and in protecting the capital investment. Our crews have rehabilitated six major facilities and seven smaller ones that were abandoned and had been closed for years. They completed renovations in the five youth access centers and upgrading those facilities to handle the increased traffic. They are currently working on three of our older facilities to upgrade them, and there's two more in the planning stages. We have repaired and reopened three previously abandoned swimming pools and concluded renovation in two neighborhood park buildings. They have been an integral part 14 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 in community, corporate and department playground raisings. The most recent one was at Belmont about a month ago, in West Philadelphia. J. Myers Youth Access Center and is operated by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. In addition to these special initiatives, the Maintenance Division has worked on improving its day-to-day functions. With the help of this Council and the administration, the Department been able to improve and expand services. Increases in our operating budget have allowed us to staff every A center with a full-time custodian, and that happened a few years ago, and that was the first time that was in place in over a decade. We have increased our authorized positions from 190 to 219. That was a typographical error -- I was getting tired last night when I typed this. It's 219. 15 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 We have raised our number of completed work orders from approximately 5,000 to 12,000 annually. We have a preventive roof program for pools, roofs, heaters, and lighting systems. We have created a tree crew that does systemic trimming and taking down the dead trees.
Today, through the work of the Maintenance Division and the cooperation of our program staff, and the Managing Director's Office, and our volunteers, we have all but eliminated graffiti from our buildings; that doesn't include the play equipment and the retaining walls and courts, but on our major buildings, and we're proud of that effort. We hope to move forward and begin to treat the rest of our physical plant. I believe that the Recreation Department has accomplished much over the last few years. We have used our increased operating budget funds to deliver tangible gains to the youths of the city and the neighborhoods they live in. We have been a good partner with corporations and major institutions in meeting our 16 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 shared mission of service and youth development. C. 47, which has radically increased the number of lunches and snacks and food that we distribute as part of our summer camp program. And we join with our Advisory Councils to improve the level of programs and service to all our centers, and we're very proud of that relationship and work very hard to maintain it. With that said, however, the Department continues to look to the future. We are consistently dedicated to both expanding our programs and services and understanding and wrestling with our challenges. With the vision and support exercised by this body and the mayor, my department has established over 125 after-school programs in the last two years. And our goal -- by the end of this year, we hope to be at 150 after-school programs 5 days a week, 3 hours a day. These take place primarily at our centers, but also in churches, schools, and community centers. 17 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Beginning last year, we began a special program to involve girls in economically- distressed neighborhoods in sports program. We did a survey, and we found that the poorest neighborhoods had the least opportunities for young girls to participate in sports. It was a great success, and we plan to double the participation this year from 150 to 300 participants and raise $17,000 in outside funds to support this program. Just last year, we established our first citywide roller hockey program. Participation has skyrocketed to over 3,500 participants. We are now retrofitting some of our physical plant to support that program and we're creating rinks all over the city, and we plan to expand this program again this year into new neighborhoods that traditionally don't play hockey in any way. This summer, we plan to establish our first neighborhood summer golf camp with golf instruction in short courses at our recreation centers throughout the city. We have also begun an extensive 18 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 training of 15 of our staff in a unique violence prevention program in cooperation with the Physicians for Social Responsibility. And this program is called "Peaceful Posse," and it's really a great way of our staff beginning to mentor young people -- young boys in particular -- about what it is to be a man and to value the attributes of resolution and creativity in their lives. The Maintenance Division has also engaged in new approaches to its work. We have begun to work closely with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and various Friends groups to upgrade the infrastructure, maintenance, and programs at our parks and squares. This program has significantly improved the conditions in many of our parks, and the program, I believe, now is poised for a major expansion. We have also expanded the use of seasonal workers to provide custodial at our B and C centers. We spent about $225,000 annually in this program and are actively examining the possibility for its expansion. The Division is also planning a new 19 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No.
980687 project designed to tackle, in a systemic way, the repair of damaged fence lines, and we have hundred of miles of fence lines in our system. Now, we know that we have made great progress, and we're proud of it. We know that we have not accomplished these things alone. We also know that we still have challenges and obstacles to overcome. However, we are open to looking at our problems, and we know we have room to improve if we want to meet our mission in its fullest interpretation. I thank you for your time and attention.
Okay, thank you, Commissioner. Are there any questions from any members of the committee? Councilman Rizzo.
Commissioner, it's a fine report. Just in reference to security around the facilities, I know that you have to spend a tremendous amount of money to keep people overnight, I understand, at some of the pools. Have we gotten any money budgeted for electronics 20 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 surveillance, TV cameras, or anything like that? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: No, we haven't, Councilman.
Is it something you'd like to do? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, we're examining the -- I think -- my view is we're going to have to spend the money for the overnight security, particularly around our swimming pools. If there's a group of kids at 2 o'clock in the morning swimming unsupervised, that's a really dangerous situation. So it's our belief that we cannot rely -- at least in that instance -- on electronic surveillance because the intervention has to be immediate in order to make sure that no one is in that pool when it's unsupervised. On the other hand, the general security is an issue not only with the Department relative to vandalism, but also it's a very serious consideration for the staff who work by themselves late at night at these facilities, and we're trying to address that and think about that. But we haven't considered -- and 21 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 probably maybe should consider -- the electronic surveillance as a possibility in that examination.
All right, my last question is: Camp William Penn, it's one of your charges; is it where you want it to be? Are there additional monies needed to get that in shape? 'Cause I was personally involved in raising money this past year to send some young people with Mary Mason to Camp William Penn, and I'm just concerned that that is, you know, up to snuff. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I would say that each year, we have improved the operation of the camp, and I think you can appreciate this. We have to run a facility that's a few hundred miles away from our base of operation. It's 600 acres and offers a tremendous programmatic challenge as well as a maintenance challenge. I think we have made great strides in improving the way the standards of operation are at the camp -- our recruitment of staff, our retention of staff from year to year, the quality of the programs. And we've also made a great effort to make sure that we recruit effectively 22 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 from every neighborhood in the city. What I would say about the camp is that it's underutilized. And I think that if I was going to sort of look at the camp critically, I would say that there's warm-weather months, and during the warm-weather months of the year -- and this is an implied criticism of the Department -- we could use the camp during the months of May, June, and the early part of July and in September for activities, but we don't. We have expanded, we have hosted a number of -- and we're beginning to do that-- we have hosted a number of activities that are Non-Camp-William-Penn-related in the last few years, with an eye to filling our five-month warm-weather season where we do have an opportunity for weekend trips, for other groups using it, for the Department to use it in relation to its other programs.
Commissioner, if I can just ask on that same point. Commissioner, are you saying that you might be able to use Camp William Penn in May and June and September? I'm assuming because of the 23 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 general population using the camp, you must be talking about the weekends? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Yeah -- yes. I mean, when the school's out in June, before we open up our camp, that school's out, but there's good weekend use and special uses --
Right. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: -- that the camp could support if we would, I think, spend some time and energy examining how to use that resource to support programs here in the city, separate from the normal camping experience.
My final question: Is the facility up to code, some of the buildings equipped with smoke detectors and all the things that are necessary? 'Cause I've heard that maybe there's a need to take a really hard look at that maybe, L&I have visit it to make sure that there's no 22 possibility of a terrible situation developing there. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right. Well, first of all, most of the facilities are 24 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 warm-weather. So the young people sleep in essentially screened-in cabins where the front of it is screened, and there's no bathroom facilities and there's not -- it's sort of a -- --
It's camping. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right, very good. But it's not like a log cabin with bathroom facilities and a kitchen, so the sleeping facilities are rather rudimentary. But the measure of standard is the American Camping Association, so they're the nationally-recognized body that surveys camps all over the country and establishes a report card for accreditation, and we've met the accreditation the last three years. But that's not to say that I'm not averse to engaging our own regulatory agencies like L&I in helping us examine it with more in depth relative to safety and, you know, its ability to function in its capacity as a camp.
Well, thank you for that. Commissioner, my final statement is: Is that camp eligible for any funding? Could we 25 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 change or do something that would make it eligible for federal funding or state funding because it's a park versus a camp? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Mm-hmm.
Are we totally funding that operation or are there possibilities of some outside funding. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right now, the camp is not exclusively but primarily funded by operating budget dollars. We do raise a small amount of funds to support the camp. And, you know, we connect with Mary Mason's effort every year, we do some additional fund-raising for refrigerators and equipment and things like that to support the camp. We blend in some of our existing programs. Our Environmental Camp interacts with Camp William Penn. But I think you're right. I think there is some possibility for us to examine through the park, like through that -- right, like the Department of the Interior or DER, that there is that possibility. But, again, to be completely honest with you, we have not completely explored them, PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 but that's a good idea look, and we'll certainly begin to look into that.
I'd be willing to help with Harrisburg. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Good. I thank you for that, and we'll take you up on that.
Thank you, Councilman Rizzo. Commissioner, I have a question as just part of the Councilman's question regarding pools. And in your statement, you said that this was the longest pool season in the Department's history. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I didn't say the easiest.
Oh, okay, "long" meaning number of days or longest meaning tired days. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right. 27 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Okay. What is the pool season? I mean, when I was a kid, it was from May until Labor Day. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That's right, and we began opening our pools on June the 3rd and completed all our openings by June the 14th.
Okay. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Or June the 17th. And what we did is, we put ourselves on a really rapid timetable to get 80 pools open in a very short period of time because the public schools, because of the their extended school day, shortened their year, and we wanted to be available the first day of summer for the public schools, we wanted our system to be fully operational.
Mm-hmm. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: And with the exception of a handful pools, in which we had some minor mechanical problems, or one pool that's scheduled for major capital renovations in your 28 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 district --
In my district, right. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: -- we were up and running at or near full capacity. And at the end of the season -- and this is basically driven by availability of lifeguards -- around the middle of August, all those young men and women who are college students, who are the majority of our lifeguards, go back to school. And if, for instance, a guard says, Look, I'm going back August 24th, but I want a few days off, I'm checking out on the 18th, there's nothing I can do to keep them there. If I want them to come back next summer and guard for us, we've got to let 'em go. If they go back -- and most schools now go back before Labor Day. Near the end of the month, we're hit with significant loss of guards. However, we kept up, over that Labor Day weekend, we kept pools open through Labor Day weekend, 24 which is a a lot for us at that time. 25 So beginning around August 15th to 29 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 August 20th, you begin to see the beginning of our pool closings. We always keep -- do our best to keep around to open up through the Labor Day 5 weekend, up till Labor Day. 6
Okay. So there's 7 no standard set amount of weeks that the pools can 8 remain open. 9 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: The average 10 weeks -- what I would say is that this year, the 11 average length of the season for each pool was 12 longer than it had ever been and the number. 13 I compute the number of days we operate 14 times the number of pools we operate, and that's 15 how we compute the length of the season. 16
Okay. 17 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: So we ran 18 at almost full capacity in terms of the number of 19 pools we had open open and the number of days 20 those pools operate. So it's the number of days 21 time the number of pools. 22
Okay. 23 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: And that 24 equals what we call our "pool season." 25
But it's true, 30 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Commissioner, I mean, I think what the Councilwoman is also getting at is that every pool does not stay open necessarily the same number of days throughout even the longest pool season -- COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That's correct, right.
-- or what you might calculate number as pool days -- COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right.
-- throughout the seasons because of particular issues regarding that pool, either opening problems or difficulties or closing because of possible loss of a lifeguard. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That's correct.
So Pool A could be open X-amount of days, Pool Y could be open Y-amount of days, but it all gets calculated in this larger thing called "average number of pool days." COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That's right, exactly.
And there's also 31 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 -- people kind of think that because a pool opens early, it closes early, when that really doesn't have anything to do with it, it sounds like. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: We do try to average out -- to be honest with you, we do try to average that out but there's sometimes forces beyond our control that might necessitate we -- like might want to keep a pool open, let's say, till September 1st, but if we don't have the guards, we can't do it. And this is not necessarily -- I would say this is not primarily a budget issue as it is a lifeguard recruiting/retention issue.
Okay. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Although if we recruited more and more lifeguards and were able to keep longer, then it could, if that becomes possible, could become a budget question. But right now, it is fundamentally a recruitment and retention issue.
One more questions regarding pools and then. . . What is your policy on draining pools? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Oh, boy, 32 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 okay.
That seems to be a problem in my area all the time, the area where I live. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I might let me Commissioner Rice addressed that after I make my initial comments. There's a couple of formal and informal operating procedures in the Department, and one of the informal sort of quick but quick phrases is, "If you can't run it safe, don't run it." And if we have a pool that -- and we had this in a number of situations, and it took a little bit of a radical response to it, where pools would have bricks and stones and bottles thrown into it, or where we would have overnight swimming that we could not control, even with the cooperation of the police, instead of just not running that pool, which that would mean, because the only way you can really keep the pool safe or clean out of glass, lots of glass, is you have to drain it, you just have to drain it. Or if you can't keep it filled overnight and keep away the -- 33 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
The swimmers. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: -- late-night swimmers, who I have a lot of sympathy for, but it's very unsafe, I would -- and until I was told to stop -- drain the pool. And the two things that I wanted to do so is, one, safety; and the other is not rob the rest of the folks, who are willing to play by the rules, the opportunity to swim by the day. So we kind of we went to some extreme measures to protect people who couldn't protect themselves or to protect the rights of most everybody else to swim during the day.
Mm-hmm, okay. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: So it's a waste. Believe me, I know it's wasting of a resource. But you've got to make these decisions from time to time, and I figured, Well, let's err and do something, and maybe somebody might get mad at, us but let's do it anyway and see what happens.
Okay. Miss Rice? 34 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Go ahead, Carol. COMMISSIONER RICE: Carol Rice, R-I-C-E. In addition to what the commissioner said, that we have looked at this over the years, and I think that the number of pools that are being drained has significantly been reduced. And, you know, we are well aware of the environmental issues and, you know, the costs and so forth. So we encourage people only to drop them or drain them when there's a real safety factor involved, which includes the glass, those kinds of things and the night swimmers. But with the help of the Police Department, we've cut down on a lot of those things, and I think our number of drainings have been significantly reduced.
Thank you, Madame Chair. I hadn't planned to start off with pools, but maybe I'll ask those questions and then 35 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 go to some other areas. With regard to these places that need to be drained, either Commissioner DiBerardinis or Deputy Commissioner Rice, have you looked into the prospect of what I've seen at least in some private, kind of homeowner situations is retractable pool covers? These covers are supposed to be fairly incredibly strong and durable. And literally, for safety purposes, you're supposed to be able to walk across a pool. It would obviously keep out -- I mean, I'm not encouraging people to walk across them, but they can prevent someone from falling into the pool. I don't know what they cost, and they would be, you know, a one-time expenditure, and there doesn't seem to be much maintenance that goes along with them. But you could cover the pool every night, not have to drain it, and not have to worry about glass and debris and all that other kind of stuff, or nighttime swimmers. Has anyone looked into that, you know? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That's interesting that you should raise that. When we 36 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 were having a problem at Vare, I wanted to do just that. I actually asked our Maintenance Division to see if they could --
Make one? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: -- make one, right, exactly. And -- but then, the whole legal question that cropped up is, What if somebody slips underneath one? Like they're there late at night, they decide to go in and swim, they get past our watchperson or disregard it, they get underneath it and then begin to drown and can't themselves out of the pool.
Right, right. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: If, God forbid, we have a guard that doesn't -- a person that doesn't show up, we don't detect it soon enough, some little ones get underneath there. So I was, based on the legal -- like the liability issue had been run off of that idea. And to be honest with you, I didn't go it beyond it at that point. I said, Geez, if I got to start working with the attorneys, I'm never going get this up, so we decided to let it be. 37 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 But we might -- you know, it's worth looking into again.
We may try to provide some assistance on our side in terms of making the inquiry and just, you know, getting the pluses and minuses. Lastly, Commissioner, we know this is an annual problem with the young people, especially at the August-September time period, going back to school, as we lose our young people who may be lifeguards going to college or some other service away from us. Have we made any attempts to recruit locally? If we're losing students to other cities, then other cities are students losing to Philadelphia. People are coming back to our, you know, 80-some odd colleges and universities in that same late-August/early-September time period. That may be an opportunity for us to say to the young person who lives wherever, You could have a job for, you know, two or three weeks lifeguarding in Philadelphia if you're coming back to your local school or university early. And then, lastly, for those -- 38 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 everybody doesn't go away. I mean, some Philadelphians actually do go to Penn, Drexel, Temple, and a wide variety of school. What, if anything, are we doing at own local schools to have local people take those couple weeks at the tail-end of the summer, early September? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I'll let -- Carol's in a better position to respond to that.
Maybe they're just too busy at that point. COMMISSIONER RICE: No. We have hired lifeguards all the way up until the end -- I mean, if someone is qualified for that. This past summer, we worked out with Temple University that those people who needed those credits in the physical education area or whatever to -- if they served as lifeguards, that that would be part of that credit, they would earn the credit. We hope to expand it to all of the other universities so that while the youngster has to pay for the credit at the school, they're being paid by us, which really covers the cost of it.
To help offset -- 39 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 COMMISSIONER RICE: So we're trying to do those kind of innovative ways any way that we can to make sure that we have qualified lifeguards.
Okay. Let me ask you a couple questions about our non-water-related facilities, our regular recreation centers. Again, going to some parts of the resolution and the title, I'm trying to get some assessment of the quality of our recreation programs, how well do they function and operate, hours of operation. You provided the committee with a significant amount of information since we last met -- after-school programs and the like. Who evaluates the quality of the various programs that we operate in our centers, whether it's regular daytime programs, after-school programs, night programs, Mural Arts Program, any of these various programs? Who develops the programs and then, subsequently, what's the evaluation mechanism on these programs? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, there's a number of ways programs are developed. 40 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 At a center, the Advisory Council -- let me just we go through a few ways on how they're developed. The recreation leader at the facility and the Advisory Council generally meet to determine what are the priorities, what programs would the community like to see at the facility.
Is that a formal process, is that an informal process, is it somewhere in between? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: It's a formal -- the relationship between our Advisory Councils and the Department is outlined in a rather thick manual that is a formal document that is signed by me and by the President of the citywide Advisory Council and signed by as many of those councils as we can induce into signing it, which most have.
Right. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: And that outlines the role of the council and the leader in the sort of day-to-day operations of the facility and the program development, so it's formal.
Who is in charge of 41 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 the recreation center? Who is formally responsible for operations of a rec center? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, the day-to-day programmatic operation of the facility is the recreation leader at that facility, and that's either leader or or 3, depending on the size of the facility.
And if you could just refresh my recollection, is one -- COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: 3 is the highest.
3 is the highest. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right. If you're Leader 3 --
It starts at 1, and then you move up. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Leader 3 runs an A center, which has major indoor, major outdoor.
Right. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Gymnasium, swimming pool, ball fields. B center is missing one of the two; either it's missing a major indoor or missing a major outdoor, it has one missing the 42 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 other.
So you only get a 3 in an A center. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right, right.
Okay. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: And then at C center has neither. Generally, they're the one-room -- they have one or two rooms, program room, small and probably a field and a basketball court, play area, something like that.
And is the leader in charge of the maintenance person, or does that person work for -- COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: The leader sets the priorities for the maintenance -- the leader -- in the best possible situation, I will tell you that I don't think this is uniform, but it is something that we want to happen in the centers, is the leader is supposed to establish on a weekly basis what the priorities are for the custodials, where we have a permanent custodial person. They're supposed to set the agenda.
And the permanent 43 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 custodial now is at the 46 A centers? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: 46 A centers and or B centers. We have full-time 5 permanent staff, custodial staff. 6
Although we have 7 more than 25 B centers, right? 8 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Absolutely, 9 yes. 10
We have 72 B 13 centers. 14 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That's 15 right, that's correct. 16
But you have 25 17 maintenance people. 18 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: We have 23 19 assigned to other than A centers. 20
All right. So 21 there are 50-some B centers that don't have a 22 maintenance person. 23 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That's 24 correct, full-time. 25
Full-time. 44 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Or permanent custodial staff.
Okay. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: So there's a form that's developed that the Maintenance Division developed that is weekly set up, that's given to the custodial staff, and that's the work they're supposed to do in that given week. That custodial staff person, though, is supervised by a Maintenance Division supervisor -- district caretaker supervisor whose job is to not only supervise that person, but, in the non-staffed facilities, the crews that clean those facilities that are crew status. So that person is supposed to manage, inspect, and take care of sort of the quality relative to the district. And the custodial maintenance function's within the district.
Okay, all right. Let's get back to program for a second and then I want to go into maintenance. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Okay, so that's one way done. Another way it's done is we develop 45 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 broad initiatives within the Department.
Right. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Like our expansion of our -- like, for instance, we have street fleet hockey. We developed the resources for that, we pitched it out to our system who's interested, we made a special effort to pitch it to neighborhoods where hockey is not being played. That's from downtown. Swim for Life, we raised the money, we offered it, and then we demand it; but first we offer, then we demand it, that each district have a program. So that's another way that it gets set up. Sometimes programs are funded by City Council which, again, like I said in my testimony, after-school programs are a tremendous opportunity for the Department. We get special funding, we move that program out to the field. Other times, people come to us where we host, where it's not essentially a Department-run program, but we host a range of other organizations who -- like, for instance, there's a United Junior Soccer League. A lot of local 46 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 sports organizations participate in our soccer league but also participate in the United Junior Soccer League. We would host those leagues and programs. Within that, there's a category of fee-for-service programs. If it's a cultural program or an educational program that we do not offer necessarily and people want that program, then we give the Advisory Council and the leader the latitude to establish a fee-for-service at the facility. That's program another way the programs get set up.
More often times than not, the fee is usually somewhat small or nominal -- COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right.
-- to cover the cost of the person coming in to run that program. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right. But, again, that fee is not set by the administration but in the local neighborhood to meet whatever the needs are.
Let me ask this question: Of the centers we have, what percentage 47 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 would you say are running at capacity, below capacity, or over capacity? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I asked that about a month ago -- I don't have the numbers yet -- in anticipation of these meetings. But my sense is that it's running very close to capacity within our system, so I'm going to guess -- it's probably a pretty good guess, and I don't have the figures to say it for sure, but I would say if you had to grade the system, I would say we're at about between 85 and 90 percent capacity system-wide. There are -- I would also say that there are some facilities where we're not programmed at that level, to be honest with you, and that would be going to a whole other level of guessing, but I will take a shot at it if you wouldn't mind.
The centers where it shows we're operating under capacity, is that due to lack of information to the communities about what programs are offered, lack of bodies at the location to run programs? Is there some level of organization between the leader and Advisory 48 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Council? Why does that happen? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: We do have some that I think are below an accepted level of programming. And I would say the first line of responsibility is ours, the Department's. The second is probably the that responsibility of the level of organization that surrounds the center is not at a high enough level that it creates the resources and also pushes us to do more, so that is probably at a low level. And I would say third, it's an issue of the physical plant. Maybe the plant's not up to speed to either welcome people in the way they should be welcomed or to accommodate the kind of usage that people may need.
Okay, back to the point of operating at the 80 to 85 percent capacity. What is your belief about the level of needs that exists or the universe of people out there that could be served, that cannot be served possibly even if you were operating at capacity? I mean, let's say there are a certain number of kids or not-so-young folks who want to do something, within reason, at a rec center. 49 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Now, I understand we can't accommodate everybody that comes into the door, but how are you addressing those needs and concerns? And if you can't expand the building, if you're not going to add on to it, where do you get other program opportunities to serve a need out of there, not just dealing with capacity issues? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, I think the level I put out is a very high level of functionality in a system that's as old as ours, but it has a lot to do with the capital.
We recognize your accomplishments and could praise you all day for them. (Laughter.) COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, I'm not looking for praise but I want to back off whether that's a bad number or that's a good number. We are, again, aggressive and we want to program off-site, off our recreation sites. Since '93 we expanded and we have a relationship with the School District where, I think, in '93 or '80, the school gymnasiums became available for 50 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 programs from October to March, so that boosted --
Who runs those programs? COMMISSIONER RICE: Leaders in the community. And there is the opportunity for those locations, for instance, that are small and don't have gyms to run sports programs, for those places that needs drill team practice locations and the places are small. Those kinds of programs can be run.
I have somebody I need to put in touch with you to talk about drill team practice locations. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I know.
Go ahead. COMMISSIONER RICE: I know who -- COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: They're tough to place, I'm telling you.
Right. They're a little loud. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: In addition to that, so that's a growing area, and we're very aggressive in -- you know, we want to continue to build that relationship with the School District 51 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 second area where outgrown our facilities and move off site is we've expanded the our use the indoor pools. COMMISSIONER RICE: Up to nine indoor pools. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That we run for public use in the non-school hours and finally in our after-school program, we're now establishing and running programs with churches schools and community centers so we've pushed beyond our physical plant there as well.
Maintenance issues who is responsible by position for the general maintenance an cleanliness. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: By position?
Yes. Who's day-to-day responsibility is it? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Where we had a permanent person, that person was responsible in working with the leader.
That's at the 46 A centers? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Yes and the 52 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 other or B centers. 3
Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: To work 5 with the leaders, create the priorities, do the 6 work. And then that custodian, however, reports 7 to a person who's in charge of the grounds 8 maintenance functions in the district. So there's 9 that person and then there is the crew, and each 10 district has a crew in the non-staffed sites 11 relative to custodial services. 12
Let me understand 13 this. 14 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Okay. 15
On average, how 16 many centers are in a district? You're saying 17 that the district has a crew? 18 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right. 19
And that crew has 20 the responsibility for how many centers? 21 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, about 22 15 centers and playgrounds in a district. 23
Okay. 24 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That's 25 rough, but that's close. 53 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
All right. So the ones that aren't -- I have to do the math. There are about seven or eight that the crew is responsible for going through and cleaning those facilities. And how often are the centers cleaned, is there a standard? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: The best we're doing is between 7 and days. The crew 10 gets around to the unstaffed sites. 11 However, just to continue the discussion, we have instituted a seasonal program where we hire -- we spend about $225,000 annually and we deploy seasonal staff for 6 months, not for the whole year, for periods of about 6 months to clean the facilities, 20 hours at a B facility and 10 hours at a C facility. But that's not -- they're not there the whole year, but they support the crews. So that's pretty much the system.
Commissioner, one of my questions was to have some clarity around yearly versus seasonal, and some of the centers in the charts that we were given don't have anybody. There's not that many, but what makes the 54 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 difference here? Who says what center can get a yearly seasonal and another center gets a seasonal and then another one doesn't? COMMISSIONER RICE: I think Tom should answer that since we're talking specifically about the maintenance department. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Custodians.
Beyond the A centers, for a 40-hour caretaker, it really depends if there's a caretaker in there presently and probably based on the level of activity or if there's a lot of older-adult activity in those centers. In other words, if you have a hundred of B's and C's altogether, you have an individual in there, you know, a caretaker. The level is based on the level of activity. There's probably more in those areas than anything else. The second consideration would be the size of the facility, the amount of rooms, square footage in the building, the amount of bathrooms.
So this is a roving crew -- at least what I call a roving 55 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 crew? Do you think the roving system here really works? I used to drive by a playground almost every day just to check it out for myself to see if it was working, and I didn't think it was.
It kind of stayed dirty too long. It's better now, though. It's better now, but it was. . . COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: What we have tried to do is, through the program that Carol talked about, with the seasonals, with trying to provide seasonal hours to sites throughout the system and to encourage the program staff to do some of that work at the smaller sites, we've attempted to sort of fill those. Those situations occur less than they have occurred in the past, but it is a tough -- it's a tough -- it's a tough hoe. But I think, hopefully, you've seen sone improvements because of interventions we've developed over the last few years to try to not have that problem with scheduling, and then increasing resources so that we don't have the 56 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Monday or Tuesday after the weekend where the place looks, you know, it looks pathetic.
Like they had a parade. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: It's usually tough when I'm driving around a soccer game with my son and we see trash barrels filled to the top. And people were really giving it to me. And they didn't want to hear about it 'cause they were hosting a game. So I understand that.
Okay. How many vacancies would you say you have in the maintenance/custodial department? And then how are they built and how long does it take?
Presently, we just filled 4 semiskilled laborers, so I believe we have 12 in the grounds and custodial area for our equipment operation, and the 8 semiskilled laborers.
Okay. I have one more question. I may come back to that later. But how long does it take for a work order, a reasonable time, to get processed and handled?
Well, it does depend on what the work order is for. 57 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Okay. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Let me try to take a shot at that. There's three things that drive our Maintenance Division, maybe four. One, I drive them crazy, but there are three other things that drive the division. There are seasonal programmatic seasonal demands. You got to get the pools ready, you got to get the heaters ready, you got to get the ice rinks ready, you got to go ahead and get the field ready. So, literally, we're like farmers, we are seasonally driven too, and that's a -- that's a big bulk of our work. For instance, you know, the indoor light at the gyms have to be ready when we move inside in October. So that's number one.
But, Commissioner, isn't this part of this problem of being seasonally driven where you're constantly asked at times to do conflicting activities or overlapping activities, and one group of people who might be 58 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 doing one thing today are then shifted to do the high-priority seasonal thing? I mean you can't mess around and not open pools. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Right.
From whatever it was that they were doing before the pools were about to be open, which then slows down what it was normally working on. I mean, isn't that true? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, I would like to say --
I'd like you to say yes. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, I'd like to say we do a good job of fighting that, and I think we're pretty good at structuring, and we spend a lot of time structuring the work within the divisions so that you can move into that and maybe there are other answers to this question from Tom to try to expand on this, but let me just try to finish this. The second thing that drives it are emergencies.
Right. 59 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Dangerous situations, exposed wire, things that we just cannot avoid taking care of.
Right. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: And then there's the work order system. I mean, so there's three. And then the thing that I do like, an initiative that I maybe think is important, that the community is telling us is important, like up at the Councilwoman's center, Waterview, I went up there about eight months ago. And, I'll tell you, I was depressed. It was a mess. And we -- you know, that's what we call the special request that comes in from the outside and forces -- you know it's not a lot of them but when they come in, they've got to get done. So there's really four. What we try to do is get good enough and structure our resources in a way that we do that well and when we're not doing the seasonal work that we line up our work in a way that we get the other things done effectively, it may not be in a week as Tom said. Hopefully, most of the time it is, but hopefully, the orders get done in 60 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 due time. So I would say a week -- I don't know, I think a lot of them do get the job done in a week in some of the trades.
Okay. I'll just wrap up with a couple questions. But, Commissioner, you and your staff will be able to stay here for the remainder of the hearing? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Yes.
I didn't really hear the number of vacancies in the Maintenance Department. Did you say what it was?
One other thing before you leave. The work order, if someone calls me, which they have, and said, you know, I was using X, Y or Z playground and there was a problem there, and it's been three weeks now and it hasn't been corrected. So really, the three-week number is just not realistic. I mean it's just not a number.
As the Commissioner said, there are so many factors that play in our ability to do this. 61 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Let's just say it was a problem with an electrical wire. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: That would get done.
We had an example where someone called and told me that somebody was at the center doing something. And in that process, they sort of cut some type of electrical cable. This was on the outside, and it was three weeks later and it still hadn't been repaired, maybe four.
That was a contractor putting in a ramp in the back of the center. The responsibility to repair that is the contractor's who did it. Our fellows went out just to make sure that the situation was safe and notified the proper people.
It's the contractor's responsibilities but you don't have any oversight in terms of them repairing things like that in a timely fashion? Because it 62 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 impacted the little league that practices there.
I think the contractor's information was that he was not going to be able to do it in a very timely manner. In the meantime, he turned them off at night. That would be the case there. Otherwise, they'll remain on.
Do you have a written recreation inspection program where, on a regular basis, centers are inspected, either by the district person or an outside person, as a part of the Recreation Department? Whose primary job is it to go around and inspect other centers for cleanliness, safety, those types of items and then report back to someone so that you and the deputy have a real sense of what's going on in the field? 63 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: No, but there is -- there is a chain of command and the district caretaker's supervisor is responsible for the inspection of the facilities to see if, for instance, their on-site person did, in fact, meet the priority list of work that needed to get done to get that center clean. And beyond his or her inspection of the facilities within the district, we do not have a formal standard checklist beyond that chain of command. And then, obviously, he or she reports to their manager, and that's it.
Given the level of investment in recent years in our centers from an operating -- I'm sorry, from a capital standpoint, and one of the impetuses behind this resolution is investing a significant amount of money into centers to get the physical plant to a physical level and standards. My concern is some of the deficiencies. Many of them are in the maintenance and custodial area. Do we have, in fact, established standards? How often is a center inspected? What is the center's condition matched 64 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 against by way of the Department's mission and program to say that the centers should look like this? And if it doesn't, who does something about it? Do you think that we should move in the direction of standardization of cleanliness, safety features and factors at our centers? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I think we're getting closer to the culture of the Department embracing a new level of accountability, which I am very happy about. But in all honesty, I was really pushing this a few years ago and wasn't making enough progress, but now it looks like we're ready and poised to move into that arena again.
One last comment. I, at least, and many members here would like to partner with the Department to go to the next level of using technology, using computerization and standards to make the Department again what we'd like it to be. I think Councilman Mariano's trying to get in. Thank you. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Thanks, Michael. 65 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Commissioner, I grew up in the golden age, in the sixties, in the platinum age. There was a lot of federal money coming down, and you could do whatever you wanted. I remember Chubby Checkers. We went everywhere when I was a youth. Now, I know you don't have that kind of money and the only way to get that kind of money is to raise taxes, which is not acceptable, especially at least six months before a primary election. If we raise taxes -- let's all be realistic, people are moving out in droves, and we as a Council are trying to bring people back. I don't know what the answer is. It may be corporate donations, I think we're starting to look at that again. Now, I know this video surveillance thing is big and is going to come into the future. Some municipalities are doing it on the street corners, and certainly people won't like it with the ACLU, Big Brother's watching all the wireless remotes. They put 'em down at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and are recording so someone could see that. 66 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 And I just wanted to ask Mr. Fox a question. Tom, I have a little interest in some of your maintenance. I know there's not enough electricians filling all the spots, but if the money was there, what could we do to help you get more capital money, more operating money, actually, for maintenance? And how many more would you hire?
A couple things have changed that have made us at least better -- we're not perfect but we're better. One is, the vehicle situation has changed dramatically. I would say a couple years ago it was not very good.
It's improved dramatically. I would say just numbers-wise that the percentage at least in the shop getting preventative maintenance or repairs has been below 10 percent for a couple years. Now, that has dramatically changed our way of operating. 67 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Supplies are available, we have a specialized system now. Purchase orders used to take months to get, so if you wanted a certain piece of lumber to prepare bleachers or whatever, it would take months. Now you can do that order today, and by Friday, I'd have a purchase order and can have this stuff next Monday. So those kinds of things make us better. Where do we need to go from here? I think it's important to have extremely well-trained skilled people who want to work. And recently, we've been very, very blessed with getting those kinds of people to fill some of our positions.
The other question I want to ask the Commissioner, unless Tom wants to help out, is I know there's a lot of problems with graffiti. Do you have a graffiti team? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: We made one up, and here's what we tried to do -- take care of the buildings. We can't focus -- I cannot focus beyond the buildings if I went beyond the building, there would be light poles, retaining walls to take care of, and we would never tackle 68 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 all the other problems. So what we've said is we want to get graffiti off of our building and we've had much of it taken off. If you go around your district, you'll see a tremendous improvement.
It's good, yeah. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: What we've done is a couple of things. First of all -- and we got more money in the operating budget for paint. We provided each facility with paint where the building was painted. So you provide them with the paint, the brushes, the rollers. That was step one. And we asked people to do this in part of an initiative to make centers look good. Where we had brick or stone, we purchased high-pressure cleaners. So we have four, I guess, four high-pressure cleaners, and some of the district bought them, and so we have a handful of high pressure and rollers and the chemicals to take it off, and we blow it off. But then there's another part. The Managing Director's office, when we come up against something we can't handle beyond our capability, the Director's been very, very good 69 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 with program, staff, the supplies, and Managing Director's Office has really allowed us to almost eliminate the problem off our building. Taking up some of the staff.
The only other comment or question I want to ask is, they had night court at 24th, 25th. I go down there, and they have the night court. If you need graffiti removed, I understand they're glad to paint rather than go to jail or get fined some amount of money. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I think the focus on graffiti has made doing it a little more risky. It's not as easy to do as it used to be, and people aren't as loose about doing it 'cause they know if they get picked up doing it, there's a little penalty for it.
Councilwoman Miller has a question. I'm the Vice Chair. She had to leave for a couple minutes. She said that they installed a new heating system, installed it but can't hook it up because PGW wouldn't certify the use of the staff. Tom, did you find out something about that? 70 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Why don't we get Eric Iffrig on this.
Eric is the most overworked, smartest man in the whole city. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: He'll tell you that yourself. (Eric Iffrig comes forward.)
Eric Iffrig, I-F-F-R-I-G, Director of Planning, Recreation Department. At Mowery, the gas blow has been installed, the gas line's been installed. PGW won't authorize the service until the flue has been cleaned. There was a problem the contractor had there with the subcontractor. In the meantime he's had a propane tank installed and that will be rectified within a day or so. Again, the whole thing should be rectified within a week.
Thank you. You stick around 'cause we got a lot of good questions.
Councilman, any other questions for this witness? No other questions for these witnesses from anyone?
No, I'm actually 71 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 done with the Commissioner for the moment and his crew of people. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: We'll be here.
Thank you. The next witness is J. Blaine Bonham, Jr., Vice President, Philadelphia Horticultural Society. (J. Blaine Bonham, Jr. and Maitreyi Reoy come forward.)
Good afternoon, Madame Chair, members of the committee. My name is Blaine Bonham. That's B-O-N-H-A-M. And with me is Maitreyi Reoy, Program Manager for Philadelphia Green. And today we're here -- actually we're here to sing the praises unabashedly for the Department of Recreation, and we're seeing energetic participants with them in a program that is becoming a model for across the country, and that is the Neighborhood Parks Revitalization Project. Which was started in 1993 through a 72 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 grant from the William Penn Foundation. As you know, Philadelphia Green has been involved for many, many years working with communities on various aspects of turning vacant lots into open space and greening streets. And in 1993, we began this project with the Department of Recreation to reclaim the derelict neighborhood parks which had become eyesores and places of danger and avoidance in many of the communities. With this grant from the William Penn Foundation, the partnership that we have is not an idle one, it's not one in name only. We work with every member at every level of the Department of Recreation staff, from the Commissioner through to the seasonal employees. And this partnership is what we liken to that of a three-legged stool. One is the public sector, the Department of Recreation. The second is the nonprofit sector, which is us. And the very important third leg of the stool is the community. And this partnership, we think, can serve as a model for revitalizing the 100 parks in the Department of Recreation's system, and they can form the heart of the communities that they 73 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 are in. Recently, we were invited to apply for a national grant for this project, and we were told by the potential grantor that the work that we had done with the Department of Recreation was a model for the entire nation. They have an extensive parks program in cities around the country, and they hadn't seen this kind of cooperation and success in revitalizing parks. Since the project began in 1993, Philadelphia Green has raised over $1.6 million to put into this project. The Department of Recreation has contributed over $500,000 in capital investments in these parks, and the community itself has raised $350,000 outside of the Department of Recreation and Philadelphia Green. So it's really generated a lot of income and leveraged the investment that you have made. Today you'll hear stories from folks that represent these parks. And if you had been at the enthusiastic park gathering last night that Councilman Mariano attended, you would have seen 500 people from those various parts celebrating those program. 74 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Madame Chair, members of the committee, I would like to take this opportunity to take you back to 1993 when we first started the parks revitalization project at Philadelphia Green. When we first looked at the parks, we were looking at a partnership where we saw a strong commitment of residents to effect change and reclaim the parks for a great potential for neighborhood spaces to become family rooms of the neighborhoods, as they once used to be, yet had fallen victim to years of neglect. The challenges were very daunting as we worked to decide how to go ahead to get rid of the dead trees, trash heaps, and derelict buildings used for illegal activities like prostitutes and drugs. There was vandalism, there was graffiti. The first step was the Department of Recreation to clean and paint and clean and paint and clean and paint. They removed bags of trash, got rid of dead trees, and in one case, took done an abandoned building. These were seemingly small steps but significant in that this signaled to the community that someone was finally home in these 75 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 neighborhood parks. As the first steps gained momentum, relationships with one another grew stronger, and excitement for new programs and activities then started to bring new users into the park. There was intensive planning efforts into the community realized with the support from City Council as well as the Department of Recreation. I'd like to tell you a little bit about some of the successes. In the last five years, parents and children have returned by the droves to use the new playground at Carroll Park, reconnecting parks to people. Group development at Vernon Park with the Friends of Vernon Park has grown from three to four volunteers to a dynamic organization. And local organizations like the YMCA, the YWCA, the Central Germantown Business Council, the Center in the Park, the Fight Against graffiti at Wharton Square, determined to rid the park of graffiti, painted the building 16 times one summer. Finally, the park attracted thousands of people and put on the map in Roxborough. We have bike cops in Elmwood Park that have transformed the park. Amazing things have 76 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 happened at the nine parks. We worked with the Recreation Department's Maintenance Staff to renovate the park house at Gorgus Park completely with in-house support. This is a building that was unstable for years, and it is now a great 7 community facility. 8 And they have coordinated with the 9 Water Department to -- 10
I heard it was in 16 Roxborough somewhere. Sorry, sorry. 17
There were drainage problems 18 at Vernon Park, and we coordinated with the Water 19 Department to alleviate them. 20 Much needed beautiful new murals have replaced graffiti at Norris Square Park, Carroll Park, and also at Vernon Park. Instances like these are no longer an exception. This partnership has seen incredible successes, but also points to the work still left 77 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 to be done. We would like to protect our investments that have been made in these parks. Too often we hear in the community that it's or 5 20 years ago since a fountain has worked or since 6 a park house was last seen and used. 7 So we would ask for increased 8 maintenance to revisit these problems that we are 9 facing. We also believe that the effort of 10 employing seasonal workers in the City parks needs 11 to expand and continue. We are delighted to hear 12 about the new appointment of the district manager 13 position focussing on neighborhood parks with the 14 Department of Recreation. We'd like to see a 15 permanent staff team focussing on neighborhood recreation. We also believe that additional staff should be added to the team such as skilled professionals who can take care of our urban forests much better. In addition, the Department of Recreation needs to have performance standards for the level of maintenance that they offer to the neighborhood parks. The partnership that we are working with is community-driven, and our best work happens at their schedule. We believe the 78 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Department needs to respond better to these flexible schedules so that the partnership can grow. The park site are underutilized, and they need better structured programs and activities so that they can become a vital resources in the community and involve children and seniors in structured programs. The department of recreation has excellent programs in their staffed centers. These need to be stepped up into the neighborhood parks. Better coordination also needs to happen between City agencies. Trash is the number-one complaint of park users, and trash collection of the park should be coordinated with the Streets Department. There is a project currently underway at selected parks where collected trash is brought to the curbside at these parks. This system needs to be evaluated for its effectiveness. However, in the end, we believe two systems of trash pickup in the city is inefficient, and there needs to be a concerted attempt to coordinate a better system. We also need better lighting in our 79 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 parks to make them safe. This is almost as important, if not more so, than lighting the streets, because when you light the streets, the activity that you want to go away from the streets ends up in the parks, so there needs to be a citywide effort to coordinate lighting our public spaces better. The Water Department, as I mentioned before, recently came to the rescue at Vernon Park, but we need to be better coordinated with the Water Department. Finally, there needs to be immediately more police presence and efforts of better policing with the park groups as well as the Department of Recreation. So in closing, why do these parks need help? Because we believe that kids need a safe, clean, green place to stay in. We believe that the equation is safe streets and safe parks, and it's those two together that make safe neighborhoods. We believe that quality urban public spaces play a key role in community revitalization. Better neighborhoods need to have better parks. 80 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 And, finally, I would say that in each of the nine parks -- and you will hear more from members of some of our park groups -- there has been a revolution. With your support, the other nine neighborhood parks can join in. Thank you.
Thank you. Before you leave, can you spell your first and last name for the stenographer.
Yes, I'll do that. M-A-I-T-R-E-Y-I. And the last name is R-E-O-Y.
Thank you. I know that a lot of work done was at Vernon Park by the Central Germantown Council, and it really looks different now. I rode by there today and noticed it, and I'm well aware of Friends of Vernon Park and their activities.
And there's been no small investment by the Department of Recreation. And I feel that if we all do our part, we can make the parks a beautiful part of the neighborhood and protect the investments that we're all making. 81 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Okay. Does any committee members have any questions? (No questions.)
I'll call three people up at a time just so we don't end up getting a late, but I want to make sure that everybody will have an opportunity to testify. The next people on the list are Michael McCrea, Leroy Simmons, Bonnie Raines -- I'm sorry I forgot you, Bonnie. Bonnie is with Children and Youth, and you and Michael McCrea can come up at the same time. (Ms. Raines and Mr. McCrea come forward.)
I'm Bonnie Raines, R-A-I-N-E-S, Coordinator of the After-School Program Initiative of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth, the region's major child advocacy organization. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you just for a few moments about the 82 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 importance of recreational facilities in the lives of our young people, particularly in their after-school time -- a lot of time of time in the development of children and teens. After four years working of working intensively all across the City to start and expand after-school programs in partnership with schools, churches, community organizations, and libraries, PCCY believes that Philadelphia has a real right-now chance to take programs to scale and serve all the kids who need to be safe and surprised when school is out. The commissioner talked about the readiness to go to scale and really do the job, and we couldn't agree with him more. We need to expand opportunities for kids through these after-school programs, to develop more programs, and to improve the quality of the offerings. Our city government, with your leadership, has recognized the importance of structured, age-appropriate activities, supervised by interested and caring adults, and has invested in the Recreation Department after-school programs that cover homework, arts, recreation and sports, 83 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 and social skills. We commend the leadership of Council and of the Recreation Department in making this happen. We all know, and recent research and policies confirm, that all citizens want safe, stimulating, enriching activities for children after school. A new national policy that has just been announced overwhelming supports after-school programs. The policy found no significant differences in support for after-school programs among Democrats, Republicans, and independents. In the most comprehensive survey done of voter attitudes, attitudes on this issue were the same. People want safe affordable after-school enrichment programs. And here's the kicker. Eighty percent of those surveyed would be willing to pay higher taxes to provide after-school opportunities. I just wanted to tell you that news just broke, and I think that's pretty exciting. The critical question today as we examine resources to support any efforts for after-school programs is whether enough is in 84 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 place to meet the needs most especially in neighborhoods where the recreation facility is the only space caring for kids when school is out. We've been working with the schools to address the issue as well and are gratified that we are coming to a time when resources can be combined and plans can be made to have staff from the Recreation Department work in the schools in the non-school hours to make a difference in many neighborhoods of the City. And we've heard today about those staff in schools and also in churches. And I can tell you, those programs would not be there if it were not for those recreation personnel. The community can benefit from a combination of all these resources and from our governmental institutions working together. When we have successfully gotten to scale, when our programs are serving young kids and older kids, when they are meeting the needs of children and their families, Philadelphia will be a safer, smarter city. But we are not there yet. We have begun the effort to reverse the trend. We have 85 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 more and we have better programs now than we used to, but there are tens of thousands of kids in Philadelphia who need but do not have the kind of opportunities they could have. In New York, the after-school neighborhood programs, supported by a combination of private, city, state, and school funds have been credited with playing a major role in lowering the juvenile crime rate.
The same is true in Tucson and Boston. We have miles to go in Philadelphia. Programs need to provide safety and to meet kids's interests. They need to welcome kids and have enough supervision to provide the kind of programming that is needed. Too many of our rec centers have inadequate staffing and supplies, too many lack the support they need to reach out to the families in the community to develop the kind of programming needed, and too many buildings are inadequate and not ready for the new importance of their role. For the most part, many recreation centers can only offer one room and one staff person. Often the room can serve only 10 or 12 children. As word is spread in the community that 86 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 a program is there from 3:00 to 6:00 every day, where will the second and third wave of or 4 kids be accommodated? Parent fees probably cover 5 the cost of minimal supplies and no more. At 6 current funding levels, such needs as recruitment 7 and outreach to school and community, training, 8 snacks, enrichment (such as trips), and bilingual 9 support personnel cannot possibly be met. 10 For after-school programs to come up to 11 the standards of solid youth development programs, 12 to meet the needs of the children and families in every community in the City, the Recreation Department needs more. We believe that most Councilmatic districts should be able to deliver some kind of programming for 4,000 youngsters but all are far short of the mark. We are working with the State, with the School District, and with private providers to develop more funding. We believe the City's steps in the last two years have been good, but should be doubled, and we can tell you approximately how much we think that will look like, and we renew our call to ask you to be creative in seeking ways to raise funds from the surplus, to an additional 87 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 charge for events at the publicly-funded stadiums. Every time someone pays to watch a team play, maybe they could pay a small percentage so that our kids could be in a winning, safe team in their neighborhoods. Further, we urge you to seriously consider the following recommendations: Two after-school program leaders per center and maximum occupancy of space inside and outside. Regular training and technical assistance to develop staff skills as youth development workers. Someone in each district to provide outreach to the community, recruit volunteers. And create a welcoming building. What I mean as a "welcoming building" is a sign outside announcing the after-school school program, a variety of activities inside and out, and a sense of connection to the neighborhood, public and parochial. When I visited a rec center a couple days in the afternoon, I pounded on three doors that were locked before someone finally came to 88 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 the fourth door. There was a very nice after-school program going on there three out of the four days, and they were locked in for safety sake so that nobody could just be wandering in and out of those doors, but it did not exactly create a welcoming sense to the community. And I think it was a matter of staffing resources. Another recommendation is a focus on one or two programs in each district with facilities that are pretty okay. And use these programs as demonstrations for the best of what a recreation department after-school program can be. Feature arts, sports, and homework support. Have tennis two times a week provided by the Arthur Ashe Tennis Center (now doing after-school instruction). Have chess, visual arts, the Reaching Higher for Reading program. Infuse other facilities with those best elements. What I have also observed is that those centers with active advisory councils will scrounge and fund-raise for more resources for their after-school programs.
We need to make sure that communities that are overwhelmed with poverty, vandalism, and crime have that support as 89 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 well. Can we not have a baseline of quality for after-school programs for all kids in the City, no 4 matter what their address is? Quality after-school programs that are recreation- and arts-focussed will be tremendously cost-effective in terms of positive outcomes for our young people. The space has to be in decent space, welcoming, with enough room to be able to accommodate the number of people who want to use it. The staff have to be trained for this new and expanded role. The quality of interaction between adults and kids is what counts. The Commissioner and the Department have begun a major effort; it needs to be provided funds to make a difference at the community level to support more kids and to serve them better. The ages that need to be served in every community cover a wide range; we have to be able to meet those needs. At the citywide level, there needs to be a person administratively in the Department with the responsibility to continuously improve the quality of programs. The Mural Arts Program 90 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 of the Department reminds us that we can have top-notch programming sponsors by the City; we should spread its influence and its quality. One staff person per center is not enough for an after-school program. We need staff that are trained and provided enrichment opportunities. We need to get out there and do the best work we can do with our kids at the end of the school day. That committee deserves to be met with adequate resources. That is what City Council can do something about. PCCY will do with a we can do to push policy, but we get pretty tired sometimes since we've been doing this now for four years, and we're glad to see some changes that are making a difference. We urge a redoubling of that effort and we look forward to the expansion and enhancement of a good start in rec facilities all over the City. Thank you. )
I'm kind of upset that Mr. 91 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Mariano kind of left. I appreciated his acknowledgment. We volunteers don't get paid and are often get confused for a city employee. I don't know if that's good or bad.
Yeah. As President of the Philadelphia Recreation Advisory Council, I represent a coalition of over 150 volunteer organizations, each representing local recreation centers and playgrounds around the City of Philadelphia. I. Get to go to all of them across the City throughout year. I go from one end of the City to the other and I see thousands of volunteers who work 40 or 50 hours a week and then come home to spend or hours a night at their local rec center. That shows me and tells me that they realize the importance of these services, not only to their family but to the entire community that they serve. By going to all of these centers, seeing them across the City, it's easy to see the difference it makes to the quality of programs offered by the Department of Recreation. 92 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 You talked about capital money. Actually, in the last years, the number is over 4 $75 million in capital in the last 7 years through this administration. And the reason for needing all of that was the extremely deteriorated of probably, I would say, most of the centers due to lack of proper maintenance on a regular basis that happened over a long period of time. The staffing levels over time decreased to a point where there was just not enough employees to do the required maintenance at each facility, especially the skilled trade positions got so bad that some of centers had to even close. From a staffing level of over 1400 -- I believe it was about 1425 -- there were only 496 employees only 6 years ago. Today the number, I understand, is up to 562. Not only have all the centers that were previously closed been reopened, but the hours of operation of many of the centers has been increased from 2 in the afternoon till 10 at night. , which increases the number 93 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 of hours, which also increases the load on the facility, which means more work itself. And without the additional employees, it just puts more on the already existing system. All of the increased usage has occurred with a very minimal increase in full-time positions. So it's kind of not hard to see that we do need more people in those positions. It's imperative that we allow the Recreation Department to operate with enough new maintenance support to protect the capital investment that have already been made. Actually, there are currently 109 maintenance employees serving over 200 centers, and it doesn't take much to see that those numbers don't add up. There are two ways that we think would have an immediate impact on the situation. First thing, we need to hire additional full-time maintenance employees to increase the time or actually decrease the amount of time that work orders sit and lay. I think they have done a good job in improving the length of time work orders get completed and work gets done on that but it can get better with the additional number of 94 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 employees. There is only so much you can do. The other thing is, we need to hire part-time custodians, which is something we could do on a limited basis because some of the centers that don't have any custodian, so that each facility, you know, would have somebody there at least in part dedicated to just cleaning the facility and doing just the basic day-to-day operations, do the floors, sweeping floors, making sure glass is cleaned up on the playground, even if only on a part-time. As far as capital improvements, one of the problems with that is the procurement process is extremely too slow to me and very cumbersome and not effective. The way that it works now, it can take four to five years to complete from the time the funds are put into the capital budget until the completion of construction. For example, my center at Feltonville, funds were put in the capital budget for it starting in 1993 for a new heater.
For the last 4 winters, the building has been without heat for periods of anywhere 6 to 12 weeks each winter. When the heater did work, there was no 95 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 thermostatic control, so it ran all the time, using about 1600 gallons of oil every 2 weeks. Finally, this past April, the old heater was removed. In May, the new gas heater was delivered, but now it's November, the middle of November, and the contractor said he will still not be finished installing it for 4 to 6 weeks. All that shouldn't take five years. That's pretty much the bottom line on that. For ADA construction in the building, construction for a handicapped chair-lift started in mid-July. It's now the middle of November, and it's not going to be completed for four to six weeks, which really means our entire downstairs has been closed since August, including the bathrooms. And so, believe it or not, this is probably closer to the norm than the exception when it comes to the length of time to procure the capital work process and length of time it takes to get everything done. As far as program staff at Feltonville, we run an after-school program and a summer day camp that serves over 130 children every day for almost 7 weeks of the summer. The Rec Department 96 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 is only able to provide us 1 camp director at 35 hours a week, 1 adult counselor for 35 hours a week, and 1 junior counselor for 20 hours a week. You know, for 130 kids, that's just not enough. In order to have enough staff to handle such a large number, we had to hire additional staff, which we spent last summer, and it was over $8,000 in additional salaries to have enough people to go on the trips that we need to take to go to Dorney Park fulfilling summer for them.
I don't want to interrupt you, and you've made a number of good points. The one I wanted to hone in on was: Have you been able to put any -- even a rough estimate together of what a kind of additional funding from your perspective or your contact with the Citywide Advisory Council, what kind of dollars do you think we're talking about that would make a significant impact on the Recreation Department?
Well, for me personally in dealing with the different centers, I think we really need between a million and a half to 97 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 $2 million incrementally. You're not going to make it all up in --
Right, I understand that you. Okay, so a middle and a half to $2 million. And what would you spend it on?
Part of it for full-time maintenance people to target upkeep and work orders. Not every skilled area needs additional people. Plumbing is certainly not an area where we have adequate staff to take care of that area. And we only have where one locksmith for the entire city. They're the targeted areas that just really need additional support for full-time people. The other area is part-time. I really think for a lot of the day-to-day operations, instead of hiring seasonal part-time people, we could go out in the neighborhood and recruit them on a limited basis. I know they do it at Gorgus Park as well. You know the gentleman that does that, I think he's supposed to be here later, but it would allow people that live in the neighborhood to work there. Most of the time 98 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 people already volunteer at the center anyway, and someone could come in and clean the place every day, that roving district crew, cleaning the place, going out and doing other things.
Could I encourage you, even if it's in rough-draft fashion, to forward to the Chair, under the lettered of the Citywide Advisory Council, a proposal on both the funding, total dollar amount, and proposed use of the funding?
I think I can get it as a breakdown, how many people to hire, part-time, full-time people. I can get that for you.
Just for one second, I'd like to go right back and ask Miss Raines to do the same and probably for some of the items that were mentioned earlier from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. I don't know, Blaine left a ton of people. I'd like you to offer that kind of information, which would be very helpful. 99 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 You may have some of the same numbers, you may have different numbers. The committee is going through a process kind of prior to budget. If we get it all together, we might actually come out of it with something most of us could live with.
Sure. The cost of about a thousand dollars per child per year for after-school programs.
As I said, with summer camps, we need to be provided with two full-time and part-time staff for the summer. The only other option would be hiring more people or turning kids away. And turning kids away is not an option. We must serve every kid that wants to participate, so I'm just not going to even consider turning them away, that's absolutely not an option.
I understand. 100 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
My next point is a sore point with me, which is liability insurance. You and I discussed this, Mr. Nutter, a couple years ago, when Risk Management told us that anyone we paid to work at our center would not be not covered by the City's liability insurance, and that because we signed the checks that paid these people, we would also not be covered. And I, as a volunteer, was also told that I was not covered. Now, I was kind of insulted, I'll be honest with you, that the administration would try to pull that off. We spent the better part of, what, nine months going back and forth over that.
That tells me that somebody just, you know, just doesn't get it. They really just don't get it.
Wasn't a part of that problem addressed with the new kind of omnibus liability?
No. Since we signed 101 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 checks of people working in the centers, we were, in turn, their employer, you know, indirectly their employer. So, therefore, because we were hiring somebody to work in the same facility and they weren't a City employee, then we were also not covered. I mean, the cost of that liability insurance would add an additional $25,000 a year for us.
So it's kind of insult to even suggest that, you know. And many of us were dragged through that process, and I had to ask the mayor and I had to ask Mr. Cohen at the time how much more they want from us. And we still don't feel the administration and City Council have given these issues priority. And when we lose just one kid to the streets, whether it's through random violence, drugs, for whatever reason, that to me is a tragedy. But to continue to allow children to be slaughtered day-to-day and not do everything we possibly can do to stop it, that to me is unconscionable and mind-boggling to me. As adults, as community leader, as politicians, we 102 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 all have to accept responsibility for this until the youth homicide rate is reduced down to zero, and we will all have to carry a part of that burden. Whether we like it or not, it is our cross to bear. (Applause.)
In conclusion, I just wanted to add that I think it really is time to consider all of these issues before making the final determination on this the Department's operating budget, not just for coming years but for many years to come. We didn't get this way in one year and we're not going to get to where we want to be in one year.
Strictly from a value standpoint -- and this is something that really, you know, rings home with me, and I look at it every day. When you look at the budget, you know, I come to testify here every year for the budget. I look at the City's cost for the Recreation Department delivering the services, and it's only about $1.38 per person per day. And I don't think there's anywhere, I repeat, anywhere in the City's 103 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 operating budget where we as taxpayers get that kind of value for our dollar. This is not rocket science, it's just common sense. People always talk about building new prisons -- how about some investment in good old-fashioned prevention? It's not a hard concept for me seems to me. Mr. Mariano said just now said we don't want to raise the taxes. I'm not talking about raising taxes. The City just spent $38 million on the Convention Center, $58 on the SEPTA subsidy. We're only talking about a couple million dollars a year here, so why not move some of the money and putting a priority on our kids to get to where we need to be. (Applause.)
We're at an impasse here and we're tired of being nice about it. We're being as productive as we can. And as far as volunteering my time all over the City, we do our part on our end of this partnership, and it is supposed to be a partnership, but I feel that, from the administration's point of view, they haven't held up their end. I'm only dealing with this administration. 104 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
I appreciate both your testimony and your sense of frustration. On our side, we're not mean, evil, uncaring people. We share many of the same frustrations. That's one of the reasons that we wanted to have today's hearing outside of the normal budgetary process. There's no way in the world we could have this much discussion about recreation next March, I can assure you that.
Thank you. Leroy Simmons, Central Germantown Council; John Sorello, Friends of Vernon Park; And John Lafley, Executive Director of the YMCA on Green Street. 105 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 If you have written testimony, can you just give it to us so if you'll just condense your testimony, we will enter your entire testimony, written testimony, into the record. (Leroy Simmons comes forward.)
Please proceed with your testimony and identify yourself for the testimony.
Leroy Simmons, S-I-M-M-O-N-S, Central Germantown Council. And we're blessed to be in a building that's in the park. Vernon Park is in the center of Germantown. And Councilwoman Miller and committee members, I'd like to thank you and Council for your continued interest, your support, and your having these hearing for the Rec Department. I love what is happening now in the park, Vernon Park. I have some materials that were prepared earlier and you can look at 'em. That gives you some history of what Central Germantown Council is and what Vernon Park is. One of the best testimonies I can give for Vernon Park is a trio like this together in Germantown, which is an area with diverse 106 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 opportunities, diverse groups of people, diverse ideas, diverse community groups, but they can center on one thought and that thought that we have centered on right now is the work that is being done in Vernon Park, and we want to come here in support of the Rec Department and that work. Some of our personal testimony in Germantown and in Vernon Park includes work that has been done through a grant that was given to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society that was to aid nine parks. We were one of them. And through all of that work, the park has been turned around and it has been turned into a facility that now has the laughter of children, folks coming out, having lunch, sitting in the park, and working together. To overcome all of the other obstacles you mentioned, the fence that is going up in front of the park, Friends of Vernon Park raised funds to do some things, and we were able to get some cooperation from the Rec Department working in a departmental way with the Water Department and your office, Councilwomen Miller, and we were able 107 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 to solve a chronic drainage sewer problem, and that's been a problem that plagued us. When the Germantown Council finally overcame this problem and when they finally dug it up, they said the problem may have existed for 50, 60 years, and it's never been fully resolved. But with the work together of the Rec Department and the Water Department and your coordination of it, we were able to finally solve that problem, and it freed up some money so that we can do some other work in the park. It was great. While commending the Rec Department for that work, that cooperation, I'd like to add that we'd like to see more of this interaction -- interdepartmental reactions to situations. I think it saves a lot of money, it gets things resolved, things that the Rec Department didn't have, things that the Water Department didn't have, the Rec Department had and was able to solve that problem. It was great. Another thing I wanted to mention. For the first time in 15 years, we now have a person working part-time in the park, a seasonal person provided for us, which is great. He's someone who 108 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 was a resident of the YMCA, and he is an example of this workforce development, this welfare-to-work idea. He ought to be commended by this Council for the work he's doing in the park. I'm excited about him, and we've able to raise some other funds to help support him. We think that what is happening, one of the central pieces is that we have been able to overcome ideological difference and just community differences to work together and to build this hub which sits in the middle of the business district and pulls everyone together in that community, which is an eight-acre park. And if we can get some more money to put a fuel on a fire that's already burning, I think you'll get more bang for your buck working with folks in the park who are raising funds. With a little more money, you can get a lot more work done. Well, I'm not going to hog all the time so I'm just going to let John take his turn now. (John Lafley comes forward.)
John, excuse me. 109 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 State your name for the record.
I'm into this, as you can tell. When I get excited, I get excited about what might go down. My name is John Lafley.
Would you spell your last name for the stenographer.
L-A-F-L-E-Y. The parks are the eyes of Philadelphia. If you have bushy eyebrows, bloodshot eyes, it tells visitors, tells our visitors that we don't care about the parks. The Recreation Department, the Friends of Parks groups that take many different shapes and sizes and whatever else and nonprofits have formed a partnership. There are examples in the country that show that that's working. A little bit of money here and a little bit of work there and a little bit of dedication there fires up a tremendous community. I heard today at a Black Achievers Program in downtown some of the sponsors giving a special scholarship. What he said is what he liked about Philadelphia, when he was given this 110 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 particular scholarship was our strong communities. He said that strong communities build strong businesses. You've already heard Mr. Simmons say that Germantown's Vernon Park is the hub of the business district. If we let the hub go without, what does that tell us about the business district? I believe that strong, well-maintained parks lead to strong, diversified businesses in a strong community. This leads to better tourism. Where have I heard that before? This also leads to better security -- you've heard about the bike patrols and others. And it's not a small project, it's a major project, but it starts with small steps. The Recreation Department develops strong community support, it's within their mission. I was so glad to grill the Commissioner. I'll tell you what, he came out well, he came out with dedication. And I think we need to continue to help him solicit financial support. Remember, partnerships build a strong community which leads to strong, diversified businesses, which help the City to help itself by 111 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 increasing the budget.
And after that. Not much more needs to be said. My name is John Sorello, I'm the Chairman of the Friends of Vernon Park. I would like to point out that private funders in the last five years felt that they could contribute over $150,000 to Vernon. Park so they must have thought it was worth something, that there was something there to be had. Vernon Park not a frill, it's an absolute necessity. Cleanliness and safety of the park are paramount. I cannot thank the Department of Recreation enough and the Horticultural Society and the CGC, the YMCA and the cooperation that the Friends of Vernon Park got from all of its neighbors. It's absolutely amazing and my position is almost superfluous. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm the only committee member at the table for the moment, and I don't have any questions. Thank you if for your testimony. 112 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Curtis McAllister, Jim Helman, President Grays Ferry Youth Access Center. Is John Boyce here? (Mr. Boyce not present.) (Mr. McAllister comes forward.)
Okay, you can proceed. State your name for the record.
Good afternoon, Councilmembers, Madame Chairperson. My name is Curtis McAllister. And the last name is M-C-A-L-L-I-S-T-E-R. I'm the President of the Stenton Park Advisory Council, and I'm here today to testify on behalf of the residents and the board members in support of the Department of Recreation capital budget and for more funds for Stenton Park Recreation Center. The Stenton Park Advisory Council dates back to 1960 when the Logan and Nicetown community was surrounded by a dynamic industrial community and a commercial district, where there was an abundance of work in our community. Most of the residents and their families worked at the Midville Steel Mill, Bud's Auto Plant, the Burpee Seed Factory, and most of the recreational events 113 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 took place at the Stenton Park Recreation Center. During that time, as a youth myself in the sixties, there was numerous organized sports teams, senior citizen cooking classes, chess tournament groups, and inter-league basketball at Stenton Park. The Advisory Council, during that time in the sixties, sponsored many fund-raising events whereby they were able to support and maintain sports activities. But when there was a need for repairs to be done to the building structures and the upkeep of the park, there was no problems of getting funding from the City of Philadelphia. Unfortunately, during the eighties, the Nicetown and Logan community had met an untimely demise with the sinking homes in our community and with the moving of the industrial businesses to the sun-belt states. It's where recreational activities in Stenton Park suffered immensely from that might blow and the disorganization. Over the last five years, the Stenton Park Advisory Council became involved with renewal programs set forth by the Department of Recreation, and we felt the need to be 114 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 participants in this process of, quote, coordinating and implementing recreational programs and activities, also to seek and promote the spiritual cooperation and to build self-esteem and to encourage a healthy competitiveness and develop lifelong recreational interest among all. Lately, we've felt the bond between us and the Department of Recreation is growing apart. This is based on our request to get maintenance repair done at Stenton Park without having patch work done, to attain financial support for our youth after-school homework club, our tennis program, our anti-drug and violence program, our GED program, our arts and crafts workshops, and also requesting for more recreational staff. Our fund-raising events that we have sponsored gained little revenue, and what we do with the little that we do receive, we give it back to the center. It's not that we're not trying to raise funds, but it is hard to get the support of residents who fear to come out to the park during the evenings or during the day because of the high crime rate in our community. 115 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Today, the future of Nicetown and Logan and Stenton Park Recreation Center will be determined by the success or the failures and planning -- impending plans that the City of Philadelphia has in store for our community. To accomplish these seemingly insurmountable tasks, we need continuous funds and additional funds from the Department of Recreation. Nevertheless, along with the deterioration of our historic park, which is Stenton Park, which also has the Stenton Mansion inside of it, we, the citizens and the organizations of Nicetown and the Logan community, with supports that make up the Stenton Park Advisory Council, have bonded together to work diligently to neutralize the negative and enhance the positive image for the presentation and the revitalization of the historic Stenton Park. We will, indeed, bring our community of Stenton Park back to the status that it has held in the past. Thank you, Council Chairperson.
Now the Grays 116 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Ferry Group.
My name is James Helman, H-E-L-M-A-N. I am a resident of Grays Ferry and President of the Grays Ferry Youth Access Center. The Grays Ferry Youth Access Center (or "YAC") is the only three-facility YAC in the city. Our YAC includes our A facility, Vare Recreation Center, at 26th and Morris street; and our two B facilities, Lanier Playground, at 30th and Tasker Streets, and Donald Finnegan Playground, at 30th and Morton Streets. Grays Ferry YAC has two swimming pools -- the pool at Vare, and the pool at Stinger Square, which is located at 31st and Dickinson Streets. Stinger Square is an unstaffed park. In the last year and a half or so, the Department of Recreation has been making a positive difference in Grays Ferry through recreation programs and the use of our facilities; a difference, I might add, that many other government and private agencies have failed to make over the years. 117 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 In just the last months, we have seen programs like gymnastics, tumbling, soccer, touch football, drama, modern jazz and ethnic dance, basketball, baseball, drawing, arts and crafts, hockey, an after-school program at all three facilities, tot recreation, track and field, and we are finalizing plans for children's ceramics. In addition, we just completed a very successful summer program with 6 day camps and 197 enrollment without incident, injury, or major problems. Some of our programs, such as tumbling, soccer, baseball, and track and field will be participating in citywide activities. These new and dynamic programs came about because of the creation of YAC because of initiative and support from the Department, the commitment of our local recreation staff, and support from the community through our Advisory Council, which seeks to advance recreation and make our programs and our facilities open, fair, and inclusive. But it all began with the Department of 118 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Recreation, which saw the potential that recreation would have to help improve our community and benefit the children and youth of Grays Ferry. Grays Ferry supports the work of this committee. We believe the Department of Recreation is underfunded, and this underfunding prevents the Department from realizing its full potential. In our community, our facilities are aged and need proper maintenance attention. It takes an unusually long time for the Department to respond to our maintenance requests. This delay is not because the Department doesn't care or isn't interested in the proper upkeep of our facilities. Clearly, delays are caused by lack of proper funding, which translates into insufficient staffing to handle all of the maintenance problems that occur throughout the recreation system. At one time, we had Department maintenance staff at Vare ready to plaster a stairwell without the ability to obtain plaster for the job. It is obvious to us that our communities would benefit from an increase in 119 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 maintenance funding, which the Department could then pass on to our local facilities. Staffing is also a problem. Our A facility has authorized two recreation leaders, an assistant recreation leader, and a full-time caretaker. One of our B facilities has authorized one recreation leader and an assistant recreation leader. Our other B facility has authorized one recreation leader. Now, I probably do not have to point out that our Grays Ferry community has had difficult problems. We have not been able to coalesce as a community the way many other communities have. Consequently, our recreation staff must take the initiative to create, operate, and supervise our programs. If our staff doesn't do it, it doesn't get done. " Had our staff not created the program, there would be no 22 drama program. Gymnastics is very hot in Grays Ferry.
One assistant recreation leader and an RSI assistant handles 61 children in the program. If 120 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 they weren't willing to do it, there would be no 3 gymnastics program. Communities such as ours rely heavily on our local staff. Our ability to do recreation is limited by the quantity and quality of our staff. Some day, this may change. But for now, Grays Ferry would benefit from additional funding for the Department, which could be passed to communities in the form of additional staffing. Another example of inadequate staffing is with our tot recreation program, which has 11 children, ages to 5, with children on the waiting list. Tot rec has only one instructor, with no money to hire a second and expand the program. A final example are lifeguards at our swimming pools. 25 per hour after they pay $60 to take the certification course. Once certified, lifeguards have their choice of where to work. 25 when they could work at a private pool for 12 or $13 an hour? Why should a lifeguard work in Grays Ferry where discipline could be a problem, when, for the same wage, they 121 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 could work in a community where discipline is not nearly as big of a problem. Last summer, we had only two lifeguards for each of our swimming pools. That is the minimum number of lifeguards required to open a pool. And even with tow lifeguards, we could only admit 50 children into our pools in order to stay within the guideline of children per lifeguard. 10 We saw the faces of our children on a hot, muggy 11 summer day when they realized that they were 12 number 51 or number 52 and they would have to sit 13 around and wait for a spot to open in our pool. 14 This doesn't happen because the 15 Department doesn't know or doesn't care about the 16 situation. This happens because the Department is 17 in no position to do anything about it because of 18 a lack of adequate funding. In Grays Ferry, we 19 feel that lack of adequate funding. 20
Are you saying 21 that you only had money to hire two lifeguard- 22 funded positions at that pool? 23
We could only get two 24 lifeguards last summer, yes, at both of our 25 pools. 122 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Can someone from the Department. . . (Commissioner Rice comes forward.) COMMISSIONER RICE: Councilwoman Miller, it was not that they only had funding to hire two; it was a recruitment problem.
We can't hear you. COMMISSIONER RICE: It was a recruitment problem as opposed to money for it. There was money there for the lifeguards.
But they just couldn't find any. COMMISSIONER RICE: They couldn't find sufficient, but we wanted to make sure the pool was opened, so we went with a staff of two.
I could spend the rest of the afternoon reciting examples of how an increase in Department funding would benefit our community. I won't because I realize that other communities want a chance to testify and because I think I've made the point. We want this committee and our elected 123 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 officials to know that Grays Ferry supports a substantial increase in funding for the Department of Recreation. We are persuaded that such an increase would benefit our community and other communities throughout the city and would allow the Department of Recreation to serve the recreation needs of all of our children and youths more effectively and more efficiently. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Fulton? (Harold Fulton comes forward.)
Yes, I'd just like to say good afternoon. My name is Harold Fulton. That's F-U-L-T-O-N. I'm a volunteer at Lonnie Young Rec Center, which is located at Chelten and Ardleigh and East Germantown. Up at Lonnie Young, I wear many hats. I'm a boxing coach, I'm also President of the Advisory Council. I started at Lonnie Young when it was named "East Germantown." I am also the father of Lonnie Young, which had lost his life in Poland in March of '80, in which 86 other persons perished in that plane crash. 124 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 I began my volunteering many years at Eighth Brown in North Philly. That's when the city was going to sell off that playground to the Yellow Cab, back in the sixties. I've been a volunteer for almost maybe 36 or 38 years, given the two locations, Lonnie Young and Eight and Parrish or Eighth and Brown. I'm here this afternoon to raise the conscious of the committee to allocate more money for all community rec centers. I'm hoping that we can seek to increase funds for recreation in the city budget, but we also want the city to increase contributions from private sectors and grant funds. We would ask the committee to support grant applications, private fund as the Fairmount Park have done with the beautiful building that they have on East River Drive of this year. We see that in the last 12 years under, I feel, a poor administration, that they allow these buildings to crumble, and now we're at a point where that, fortunately enough, hopefully with the help of Councilwoman Miller and State Representative John Meyers, that Lonnie Young will be entitled to a building. I'm hoping to see that 125 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 before I, uh --
Before I leave this earth. I know money seems to get mixed around, and we went through that road many, many times. I hope that this do not happen in this particular incidents. Preventing maintenance is one of the key issues to any community. As I stated before, if you continue to look at ugly buildings, you're only going to get no more than people performing you ugliness on buildings. The more that you try, which, in turn, the Department of Rec tries to say that as soon as someone marked a building, take it right off. Well, that works sometimes, but the main thing is that we need to upkeep of maintenance to keep those buildings going. I'm glad to know that this committee asked Mike McCrea to give them a figure. I hope Mike will do a lot of brainstorming with other people that are dealing with the Department of Rec Center to come up with a figure that would be adequate to our needs because 'cause we definitely need more money in this budget to maintain our 126 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 community center. I would also like to emphasize that the mayor said last year that Hawthorne and Fox Chase has an upgrade to a A facility. I would like the committee to take a ride in the different sections of Philadelphia and see these little buildings that they call a rec center, and I would love for them to do maybe the same thing that they have done for Fox Chase. Lonnie Young is not looking for that type of building, but nevertheless, in order to have rec for the youth, those little buildings only serve children 8 to 13 years old. We lose them after our community football is up to 13. After the next year, you see them on the corner, trying to deal drugs and whatnot. We need centers that are going to be A center staffed, where that, hopefully, that we can do the same thing that we're doing at Lonnie Young. I'm going to say this, and I hope that nothing happens during the period over the next year that Lonnie Young fly into the newspaper, but we took the opportunity to buy a pool table, to maintain the kids 15, 16, 17 years old. It's 127 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 working out real well. We bought two ping-pong tables, which, in turn, we are asking different people. My philosophy is, as far as being President of the Advisory Council, I grew up in North Philly, I know how it is, worked for the Department as a lifeguard. And once I went to any place, whether it was Queen Lane or Francisville, or whatever, I always try to find out the person that have the most clout. And I automatically make him the lifeguard, I make him a junior lifeguard. This is what we did up at Lonnie Young this year. We made -- we knew the different people that are something like a leader. I bought T-shirts saying "Junior Lifeguard." And fortunately enough, we didn't have any problem up at Lonnie Young like we had the year before last. So all I'm saying is that we got to go back to basics. A lot of us know what we need. We allow things to get out of hand. We have to try to put it back in perspective. The kids that are out there that are 18, 20, or something like, it's going to be hard 128 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 to get them. But with this after-school program, we can justify making sure that those kids have a proper way of dealing in the rec center with respect of not throwing papers on the floor or doing things that we have as grown-ups have allowed kids to get away with. We still need a lot as far as maintenance is concerned. I would love to see all those little buildings that are B or C centers be incorporated, like I say, into Fox Chase. We don't need another Eddie Pollack for something to bring that about. I thank you.
And I've been to the Fox Chase Gym, I've been to that new Eddie Pollack Gym, and it's really nice. We all have a wish list as it relates to recreation centers, and we're just promising we'll do the best we can. Thank you for your testimony, all three gentlemen.
Thank you. 129 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Bob Turino, President of the Roxborough Civic Association; Gloria Johnson, President of Friends of Parkside-Evans Playground. Is Stephanie Andrews here? (Stephanie Andrews raises her hand.)
Okay, good. Director of Friends of Philadelphia Parks. (Above-named panel members come forward.)
And I'll tell you who we're going to have next so that you can get ready we're going to have Kathleen Paulmier, Sally Kennedy, Greg Paulmier, Obia Adams, and Cleo Prince, the Greater Germantown Recreation Network, and Waterview Recreation Center. (Gloria Johnson comes forward.)
Yes, thank you. Hi. Good afternoon. I am Gloria Johnson and today I come before you wearing many hats. First I'd like to thank you for the 130 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 opportunity -- nice to see you, Mike -- and we're very happy that this committee brought forth us so that we can share what we know. As I said, I wear many hats. The first is President of Friends of Parkside-Evans, which, as the other gentleman said, were blessed to be in the park located at 53rd and Parkside. In that facility, we run about programs. And the "we" 10 that I'm talking about are the friends of Parkside 11 Evans, which is an all-volunteer group. 12 The blessing, again, is that we have a 13 three-pronged relationship; and that is with the 14 City, the Fairmount Park, and with the Friends. 15 Exactly how the funding streams through 16 the Department of Recreation, I don't know. All I 17 know is usually, when we have a problem, if it's a 18 big problem, we talk directly to Fairmount Park. 19 And if it's even a bigger problem, we go to Mike 20 Nutter, our Councilman, and we find that it gets 21 resolved. 22 The problems that I would like to first 23 bring forth is that as a recreationalist born, 24 bred, and raised in Philadelphia, I too grew up in 25 the golden age of recreation. We ran track, we 131 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 had cheerleaders, dance, music, All City Dance Club, All City Choir. I mean, we were busy. And as a result of that, I grew up to be a very dedicated volunteer. I remember my first certificate was given to me at Haddington Recreation Center. And at that time, I was a swing guide, so I sold, it was hook and sink that I would do this kind of thing once I became an adult. Also what I remember at Haddington was an opportunity when Martin Luther King came, and my brother at that time was on the football team. I was 7 years old or 9 years old, and my brother was the start on the football team, and we also had cheerleaders. So, as you can see, between the schools and the recreation centers, as well as very dedicated volunteers, we grew up to understand, recognize, and love recreation, the arts, and education being done at those kind of facility. Hence, for the last 17 years, we have been dedicated volunteers at Parkside-Evans. And I'm proudly to say that we are very proud of that facility. 132 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 We are primarily an outdoor facility. The building itself has a capacity of 65 people. However, we consider ourselves staunch supporters of open green spaces and environmental issues and concerns. However, just as all of these other others who have here to present, we do have our issues and we do have our concerns. I believe in recreation for everybody. We're talking about from the littlest person to the adult of 101. And as a staunch recreationalist, we also believe the facilities for real for real should be open hours, and 14 that really is our aim. 15 Today the society that we're in, with 16 part-time workers, seasonal workers, 17 under-workers, under-employed, unemployed, and all 18 of those other kinds of categories that we find 19 ourselves and our society in, we must push for 20 more recreational hours. The bottom line in all 21 of it is, we know that the most healthy 22 communities, whether they're in our country or 23 other countries, are those that have positive, 24 strong recreational, educational, and cultural program. 133 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 So as an advocate of recreation, the parks, open green spaces, and people in general, we must have an increased budget for recreation. I do have a question, and perhaps I'll save that a little bit for later, but I'll tell you to be specific. Because I represent the Friends of Parkside-Evans, I'm also Vice President of Parkside Association. I'm also District Representative of Fairmount Park Advisory Council District 1, which is West Park.
And my last but very important position I hold is Director of Youth Programming, Seniors, Recreation Education and Culture. And today I come before you to say that we attempt to, as volunteers, to meet that. We consider ourselves the eyes and ears of the park and our facility, so we are on our job 24/7, we never have a break. As soon as graffiti get up on the wall, we're there as soon as it's there. And, thank God, due to Fairmount Park and our relationship with them, in areas that we can't reach, they get, and they get it off as soon as possible. So that's the kind of relationship that we enjoy. 134 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 However, as well as we're enjoying those, there are some other areas that we know are most important to the West Philadelphia community. Number one, the pool located at 39th and Olive Street, we must have that pool open. We certainly enjoy the wonderful area at Kelly's Pool. However, if you attend every summer, because the pool at 39th and Olive Street has not been open, we have an overabundance, and we usually every summer have problems with overpopulation at Kelly's. So we're very interested in exploring the idea as to why that pool is not open and when, in fact, it can be.
Miss Johnson, let me just ask you a question, and I want to make sure the record 'cause you know I love your advocacy for Parkside-Evans, but some may not be familiar. Parkside-Evans Recreation Center is actually not under the jurisdiction of the Philadelphia Recreation Department; it's under the Recreation Division of the Fairmount Park Commission. And 39th and Olive, albeit in West Philadelphia, is not in the part of West 135 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Philadelphia that I represent. Do you know who's responsibility for that pool? Is that a --
Mm-hmm, it's a rec center. I guess that would be Councilwoman Blackwell?
But the Commissioner is here and we'll try to get an answer to you.
'Cause it's very, very important. As you know, that area has a high concentration of young people. And every time --
Every summer that that pool's not open, we have a lot of problems. Kelly Pool, we love that pool, we consider that the best pool in the entire city, 136 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 and so does many others. Our biggest problem right now is the cover over Kelly Pool. With the recent hand-down from the corporate office of the YMCA, we are no longer -- the public is no longer able to walk off the street, go to the Y at 52nd and Chestnut and pay to go swimming. You must be a member of the Y. Hence, the whole north side of West Philly in our area, Councilman Nutter, we have no indoor swimming pool. I was shocked, devastated and wondering what in the heck are these people telling young people. Now, I'm an old time recreationalist, and I'm still upset it, so we need Kelly Pool, you know, and us making that push for the new pool. We talked about a cover. So we are still interested in making that happen and anything that we can do to assist in that, we would be most happy to do.
Miss Johnson, maybe I'm thinking about something else. Is there a pool in Memorial Hall also? Or am I thinking about the basketball court?
It used to be three. 137 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
And, as you know, future Olympians can't learn to swim if we don't have an indoor pool.
I understand. Let me inquire of Director Mifflin as to the status of the Memorial Hall indoor pools.
Open-door policy. I know that initially, when I read this bill, Councilman Nutter, I was very happy to come because I've also loved recreation. And the open-door policy that has been mentioned by others who have sat here must be reinstated. Any of us, when you ride by recreation centers and they appear to look like prisons, and that has to stop. The way that the open-door policy happens is similar to what we have. We don't have to be a rocket scientist to know. Have the community come in, participate not only as 138 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 volunteers but employees as well. Yes, I want an increase in the Department's budget. However, those people who are hired should come directly from the community where that facility is located. The importance of that is we have ownership. We've been the eyes and ears the entire time that the facility is there. Stop looking outside of the community because the community itself is the answer to wholesome activity. So, please, if we get increased funds, and please, if more staff are hired, please look directly to the community because it is the community where that facility is located that will save it, will make it or either make it break. Variable programs. Again, you know, programs should emanate from the people. Our facility, we vote there, we've had funeral receptions there, we've had birthdays there, we have the Ghandanian Women's group who meet there, we have the NA, which meets there twice a week. And as a result of that, which is one of the things we're very proud of, it used to be crack smokers behind our back door. As soon as we 139 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 brought in the Narcotics Anonymous, it no longer exists. So our communities, the people surrounding the facility know exactly what we want. We need open, friendly, honest people who are not just waiting to retire to put programs in our communities. The last part that I really want to emphasize is sustainable programs. Volunteers -- and, as you can see, I brought my Fairmount Park volunteer bag. Volunteers need to be sustained. I'll give you an example. The lunch program, which has been running forever, and any of us who serve children, we do it every summer. The funds that come from the lunch program are important to little organizations like ours. We've not received payment yet for a program that ended August the 15th. It's extremely important because those of us who run volunteer programs are in our pockets, and we need little funds like that that doesn't make that much difference to the City employees, makes a heck of a difference to organizations like ours. So ironing out something that ended 140 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 three months ago and then get paid three months later is not really giving the proper respect for those of us who keep programs running. (Applause.)
I guess I pretty much have covered almost everything that I could mention right here. And, again, Councilman Nutter, I do thank you for the opportunity.
And if there's going to be some seasonal part-time, full-time jobs available, please make sure that they come from the people who are there. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Okay. My name is Bob 141 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Turino. That's spelled T-U-R-I-N-O. I'm President of Upper Roxborough Civic Association. And today I'm also representing Andorra Homes Civic Association President Donald M. Whalen. Last name's spelled W-H-A-L-E-N. I first would like to read a short statement that Mr. Whalen gave me, and then made a very brief statement on my part, very brief.
Thank you for your statement. It's been a pleasure hearing from you. (Laughter.)
I knew I was going to get in trouble. As a community leader and concerned citizen, I, Donald Whalen, would like to testify on behalf of Andorra Homes Civic Association. Houston Playground has been in existence for nearly three decades, and in that time, our community has grown with the addition of many new homes such as Thomas Mill Heights, which has over one hundred homes. 142 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Throughout the years, Andorra Homes Civic Association has provided funding for various types of items that the Recreation Department could not fit into their budget. Also, I may add, we were happy to do so. Because of the many groups and sports activities that continue to use this facility, we are requesting funding for a full-time custodian. The position was recently vacated due to retirement, and we were told that no plans were being made to hire another person to fill that position. One major request the community has is to increase the size of the existing building. Many civic and sports organizations need a place to hold meetings. Classes are also held such as ceramics, dance, and numerous others. Scheduling these various activities has been a problem because there is only one room. Mr. Tom Harbery (ph.), who is the facility director, has expressed a dire need for more storage space. I have enclosed the proposed plan to add additional rooms to the existing structure. Please keep in mind that any additions would be 143 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 greatly appreciated. In closing, I would like to thank you for everything that has been done to improve our playground in the past. That's Mr. Whalen's statement.
It's my understanding that the plans for expansion are that you would like it to be something about half the size of the Convention Center; is that my understanding? (Laughter.)
Okay, I understand, right. Well, yeah, there's a parking problem in the Ward. 17
Okay, my statement from 18 Roxborough. Speaking on behalf of Upper 19 Roxborough Civic Association, we share the Houston 20 Center with Andorra residents. The building is 30 21 years old. And with the growth in our area, we are in need of a larger building. Other than the Houston Playground and Al Perleman Ballfield, there are no rec centers in Upper Roxborough or Andorra. There are no pools, 144 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 indoor or outdoor. The expansion of the Houston building would at least be a start. In the winter, there's only the main room for meetings and activities. A Brownie troop and a civic meeting don't blend well together. Houston is the only building that serves the needs of residents. As far as the Al Perleman Field, that is for football and baseball league playing only. So we would request that you take this under advisement and that we could possibly have an expansion to our facility so that we might use it.
Yes. Thank you very much for your statement, Mr. Turino.
Thank you for coming down. You're starting to make regular appearances here at City Council. I think you 145 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 were here Tuesday on a different matter.
We'll work on that high compensation that you're receiving for your volunteer work. Yes, Miss Andrews?
Good afternoon. I'm Stephanie Andrews, A-N-D-R-E-W-S, and I am the Director of Friends of Philadelphia Parks. On behalf of board of the Friends, I want to extend our appreciation to the Department of Recreation for their commitment to what we call passive or community parks within their jurisdiction. The new seasonal workers and the efforts to improve trash collection at the park sites have made a big difference. The Friends spent a lot of time this past summer going into neighborhood across the city where these passive parks are located, which is really every part of Philadelphia. We talked to caregivers and near neighbors, asking about the 146 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 history of their park and what kinds of problems they've faced. Not surprisingly, the litany included the violations of community and person we've all become far to familiar with -- drugs, shootings, crime, prostitution, vandalism, graffiti, and littering. Despite the problems, however, there's a remarkable sense of determination on the part of many people. They want to take back their open space and they want to return the parks to the people of the community, the ones for whom they were originally intended. Under Commissioner DiBerardinis's leadership, the Department of Recreation is working as it has never worked before to help the dreams of these communities come true. The success stories of Gorgus, Carroll, Fairhill, Malcolm X, Norris Square, and others are becoming legends to those of us in the green community. And with more funding, the Department of Recreation can do more. Improved and additional equipment will help with maintenance and lawn care. 147 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 We are all realists. We know that city dollars are finite. And that realism, together with the willingness to take on enormous projects, is one of the reasons why Philadelphia boasts more volunteers for parks and open spaces than any city in America. However, although sweat equity goes a long way, there are still many times when we need the help of our City agencies. In closing, I use that every considering be given to increasing the funding of the Department of Recreation so they can continue and expand the excellent work they're doing. With more funds, they will be able to better help Philadelphians reclaim their community center. Parks help people reach across age, gender, and racial lines as they work for a common cause. And they provide a wonderful opportunity to teach our youngsters about stewardship and responsibility. Many of us belief that the lessons learned by working and caring for things that matter -- and this was what Gloria was talking about -- are lessons that will last a lifetime. 148 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 And parks and open spaces are high on the list of the very few things which will last well beyond our lifetimes. They're our gift to the future. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you to all of you for testimony. And thank you for hanging there in with us. Kathleen Paulmieri, Sally Kennedy, Obia Adams, Cleo Prince and, I believe, Bill McCoy was -- UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: He had to leave.
And -- I'm sorry, and Greg Paulmieri. UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: And Obia Adams had to leave also.
Good afternoon. My name is Kathleen P-A-U-L-M-I-E-R. I'm the co-clerk of the Greater Germantown Recreation Network. I grew up in the (unintelligible) neighborhood in Germantown, and I'd like to read a statement from the Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society Friends, otherwise known as "Quakers," who 149 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 is helping to sponsor this Greater Germantown Recreation Network. The Germantown Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends ("Quakers") has a grave concern for the recreation centers in District 3 and 4, which have antiquated physical plants, inadequate maintenance or housekeeping staff, and bare-bonus programs, if any, which are run by burned-out volunteers. And much of what I am saying has been said already today, so I'll try to edit as I go.
That's what happens in the three- to four-hour hearings.
Not only do our neighborhood children suffer under these conditions, but we all suffer when children must fend for themselves and find their own, often destructive and sometimes violent pasttimes. We have a peace testimony as Friends, which state that we not only object to violence in 150 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 any form work, but that we must work on the root causes of violence. We are spiritually led to work to improve conditions in our recreation centers so that our children may have safe, clean environments in positive surprised programs when they are not in school. In order to create such an environment, maintenance issues must be at the top of the priority list. Individual centers in Districts and will testify as to their immediate maintenance needs. Unless our centers are clean, safe, and warm in winter, with adequate equipment and adequate bathroom facilities, we cannot expect our children to attend even the best of programs. I just want to paint a picture of a couple of nights ago. Twenty of us gathered at the Pleasant Playground. I don't know if any of you have been out to that building, but it's quite small, they had no heat, and two of their windows would not close, so we were well-chilled after about two hours, but I do want to say that those twenty people came out and showed their support and their concern. The Peace and Social Concerns Committee 151 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 of our Quaker Meeting is already looking for positive programming models, which address directly the issue of peace. Conflict resolution 5 programs already exist, I understand, as do self-esteem-building, drama, dance and martial arts programs. A program of particular interest to Friends is the American Friends Service Committee's Help Increase the Peace (or "HIP" Program), which has been tremendously successful in other cities. 's Cardoza High School for its success in teaching student conflicts-resolution skills. They role-played situations that they must deal with on a regular basis and then use those skills in real-life encounters with police or harassment in their schools. I'd like to quote the editor of one of their papers. He says that prevention of violence is a wise investment; otherwise, we will be reacting constantly to the symptoms of a violent culture. We can no longer tolerate and communities as places where young people and 152 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 adults live amid fear, anger, and the threat of violence actions. When understanding and well-chose words replace bullets and pain as a means to resolving our disputes, we will have gone a long way in transforming a culture of violence into a culture of peace. 38 per day to have a child at one of the recreation centers; that's according to Mike McCrea. Whereas the cost of keeping person in a youth study center is $90 per day. 38 versus $90. The direct savings to the City is obvious, but it is the indirect benefits which should tip the balance. Proactive investment in recreation is positive and nurturing to the human spirit; whereas reactive spending on the criminal justice system ignores the root causes of crime and ensures its perpetuation. If there are fears among you or the administration that the money would be wasted on disorganized centers, rest assured that the 30 members of the Greater Germantown Recreation Network I have been involved with for the last 153 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 year and a half are diligent conscientious, punctual, reliable, articulate and well-organized. There are concerned people working towards solutions, who are ready to give value to dollars spent. Increasing the funding for recreation will not only improve the physical plants, it will give die-hard volunteers the recognition and support that they deserve. Volunteers are not only paying their City taxes, but they are giving of their time as well.
The City benefits from their 600,000 hours of volunteer help each year. 5 million annually. We ask that this time and effort be acknowledged by matching at least half of this savings in the fiscal year 1999 and 2,000 year city budget for the Recreation Department. If the City could hire one additional full-time person to each A and B center and one part-time person to each C and D center to provide volunteer outreach, supervision, and training in 154 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 areas such as fund-raising, the centers would ultimately become more self-sufficient and self-sustaining. Decentralization of authority in the Recreation Department would allow individual centers more autonomy in terms of managing their funds and hiring local help if jobs are not completed in a timely manner. The work order system, as it is currently set up, is not meeting the needs of individual centers. Perhaps more staff needs to be added to the various maintenance teams so as to be able to both the emergency situations as well as the monumental maintenance and housekeeping tasks which have accumulated. Unless each of the specialty teams is enlarged, the centers may continue to deteriorate faster than they can be improved. As a survivor of violent crime myself, and one who has not fled the City, I am committed to making Germantown a safer place for kids and adults alike. Improving the rec centers is a positive, tangible step towards enhancing the quality of life for all of us. I believe strongly that dollars spent 155 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 on recreation to help make them welcoming, hygienic, safe, nurturing and educational will give our children a place not only to play but to develop into the citizens we would like to see running our city in the future. And I have attached our mission statement and some of our goals. And I did want to say that I had some students with me who were very interested in this process. One who was able to get out of his American class but not his basketball practice, so he had to go back.
We understand. There are priorities and then there are priorities.
Thank you very much for taking the time in setting up these hearings.
Sure, thank you, thank you for your testimony. (Applause.) (Tom Grabe comes forward.)
Don't be shy. 156 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
My name is Tom Grabe, G-R-A-B-E, and I'm an attender at Germantown Monthly Meeting, and I'm a member of the Germantown Recreation Network. Bill McCoy, one of our members, has asked me to comment on some of the points he wishes to make. Bill is the -- he's the President of the Advisory Council at Morris Estate, Morris Estate Recreation Center, located at 16th and Chelten Avenues in West Oak Lane. He goes on to say that there are a total of programs at the center. His wish list 14 includes piano lessons, Boy and Girl Scouts, adult 15 literacy classes, and a girls softball teams. We 16 have young women, young men, and young mothers 17 spending over 86 hours per week, volunteering 18 their services to the center. 19 He's commenting about the existence of fees for services, where people are requested to pay for it. Why are we here? he further asks. He wishes not to criticize or argue or to point his finger, but we all share concern for the youngsters of our neighborhoods and their development, and there's a question as to how many 157 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 children get excluded when fees for services are placed for participation in programs. We need your help. Our rest rooms -- there's -- there were new rest rooms put in, and apparently, the one rest room doesn't work any longer. And the question is raised -- and I have to interject a personal feeling, not to be -- not to be -- not to hide the issue that we're dealing with but, I think Mr. DiBerardinis needs a tremendous amount of praise and support from the people of Philadelphia but I think City Council has to address some of the inefficiencies in the system. And my involvement with the various Recreation centers, as is pinpointed by Bill 17 McCoy, in doing work to the bathrooms, and it's not completed, it's a problem that needs to be addressed. People are being hired that are not responsible, they're not being held accountable, and I think that the system needs to be reviewed by City Council and things tightened up tremendously. There's another instance that Mr. McCoy relates in terms of their basketball court being 158 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 resurfaced; a fine job, but then no back boards are being put -- and I'm saying no back boards for three or four months. It's only common sense that says that not only does recreation need more support, but what is already being spent needs to be supervised, and I think that City Council can set the parameters much better than have been set before. He would like to see 2 more part-time staff people 20 hours per week. He comments about the heating systems. There should be preventive maintenance on heating systems so that they don't break down. Again, he addresses the concept of contractors. Why hire contractors that do shoddy work? And if this is the situation, why hire them again, implying that they are regular choices for doing this kind of work. Okay. And I thank you very much. Oh, I'd like to make one more comment. I just pigeonholed Mike, our commissioner, and I asked him how much -- people have made a comment of how much money in terms of increase could the 159 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Recreation Department absorb, and there's the number of 1.2 million, 2.5 million, whatever. I would like to see -- Mike accepted the amount, with his honesty and integrity along with it, of $6 million. I think that we should shoot for -- we should look at how that money should be spent. And I wish to close with a comment that if we could get that in place, we might the summer of '99 being a renaissance summer in Philadelphia.
Councilman Nutter, Councilwoman Miller, perhaps I should say "good evening" now.
Absolutely. Please identify yourself for the record and bring the microphone closer.
My name is Sally Kennedy, K-E-N-N-E-D-Y. No relationship to the former president. And I am a participant in the Greater Germantown Recreation Network, which is 160 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 cosponsored by the Germantown Monthly Meeting, which you well know by now. We are grateful for the aggressive leadership being provided by Councilman Michael Nutter to focus attention on the importance of the recreation system in the lives of our children in the City of Philadelphia. I wish to commend the City Council as a whole for scheduling these meetings, and I hope they're all listening in their different offices since I've seen testify the one or two people when I came in here. However, this testimony is also intended for the mayor and future mayoral candidate in addition to the Members of City Council. According to a report prepared by the Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth providing statistics for years 1995 through '97, we are failing a large number of our children. While 8,000 students graduate from high school each year, 7,000 drop out. More than 5,350 juveniles were part of the juvenile justice system, as of June 1997, 145,000 children qualified for welfare, and an additional 31,000 were helped with food stamps. 161 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 I have been told that 80 percent of the student body our public school system lives below the poverty line. This must mean that in some neighborhoods schools. The figure could reach close to a 100 percent. With 1,100 calls coming into the Department of Human Services monthly to report an abused or neglected child, the situation appears pretty dismal. How can these children be given a fighting chance? School reform, of course, is important, but what happens to the children when they are not in school? School lets out at 3 o'clock. What then? especially if parents are working if there is no or insufficient guidance at home, what alternatives are there to hanging out street corners, being exposed to and participating in aggressive drug activity or fooling around with a friend of the opposite sex or getting into a variety of mishaps and misdemeanors. In addition to recreation centers and playgrounds, libraries have programs, some churches and agencies have programs, even schools have programs after school. But altogether, they do not begin to meet the needs, nor do they 162 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 attract the kids in greatest need. We are here to talk about the potential of the public recreation centers, playgrounds, and parks. Thanks to the commitment of a number of dedicated community volunteers and a very small recreation staff, quite a few constructive activities and programs are carried out in these centers and playgrounds, but for limited hours, not on holidays, and not involving nearly the number of children needing attention. Yesterday, the children were out of school; I don't know what they did all day, but this was not a concern of the Recreation Department, for the recreation too centers were closed, had the day off. Now, does that make any sense? The average voter does not know how underfunded, understaffed, and undermaintained the public recreation centers are. In the eighties, the Department of Recreation had a staff of 1,200; in the nineties, a staff of 540 serve 160 facilities, and playgrounds without facilities apparently have no program staff at all. Do we really believe that children should be hanging 163 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 around playgrounds without proper supervision, bullying each other and getting into mischief? The resolution calling for today's hearings is very comprehensive to the point that it correctly recognizes the accomplishments of the Commissioner given the limitations of what he gets to carry out his assignment. We applaud his efforts and we applaud the efforts of many of the Recreation Department staff.
However, I would like to describe the following concerns that have come to my attention during the past year that I have been getting involved in the public recreation system. To consider a large A center to be fully staffed with two and one half people is a joke, especially if one of those staff members has a rotating assignment to a number of other centers, and one of the positions is vacant for half the year. When there is a vacancy in the center for maintenance staff, the downtown office has no 23 funds to keep on staff people to substitute, so so-called "seasonal people" are hired part-time for no longer than six months at less than a 164 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 living wage to pinch-hit. The constant turnover of not very committed staff does not help overall morale in the center. Central supervision of the maintenance staff -- I am talking about the specialized maintenance personnel -- and limited or non-participation of the center's supervisor and staff selection undercuts the authority of the supervisor to coordinate effectively what needs to be accomplished. I recommend that you assess how extensive the morale problem there might be because of the lack of resources and support, and to what degree talented recreational staff, therefore, stop caring and function at less than their full potential and, therefore, serve fewer children. Consider the impact that poor maintenance translated as ugly, poor security, poor coordination, uneven programming has in attracting the children. Different sections of the Department need to coordinate more closely. For example, if you refinish the basketball court, which was just mentioned, and 165 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 then wait indefinitely for back boards to be installed, what have you accomplished? I also want to mention that center that we were in the other night. There was one bathroom that said "For Staff Only," and you had to go out of doors to go to. It is not very helpful for the participation of children and volunteers. Adequate equipment and supplies are important to keep staff and volunteers from burning out. Last year, for Martin Luther King Day, Waterview had 160 volunteers line up, plenty of paint, and three paint brushes. ) Foundation, much was accomplished. What will happen this year? I have not heard that the Recreation Department funding for supplies has been increased. I hear that there are limited supplies in the after-school program supplies, and $335 per center does not provide much. 50 an hour for one person to run the program will attract the level of dedication and competence needed to have an effective program? 166 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 In the summer, for those centers with swimming pools, additional security staff needs to be hired so that the lifeguards will feel safe. There needs to be more adult supervision and instruction present at the swimming pools. The problems seem greater in the less affluent sections of the city. I do not believe in conspiracies. But, at the same, time, you may wish to look at the racist impact this benign neglect has had, coincidental or not. As neighborhoods have changed and middle class, frequently white residents have been replaced by poor minorities, public funding has disappeared from the Recreation Department. We think we have more important things to pay for than children's play. Isn't that ridiculous? Beefing up the Recreation Department in the right way, with extended hours, more long-term staff, adequate pay would provide jobs for some of those people that society wants to get off of welfare. If we can find the money to build more jails for the mothers, don't tell me that we can't find the money to care for the children left 167 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 behind.
Society foolishly has been turning away from affirmative action programs that opened the doors for historically disenfranchised members of society. That is all right, if something is done early on to help level the playing field. People do not have a problem in recognizing the important contribution of Head Start to the children in economically- and educationally-disadvantaged communities; why should this support be withdrawn when the child turns 5? The job is not done by then. A properly-developed recreation system would be an ideal way to continue what Head Start has begun and it will help build a community across ethnic, religious, and economic lines. We know that there is little chance this year for really adequate funding -- that is, millions of dollars, but we need to start working in that direction. The first priority is maintenance and maintenance immediately. The Greater Germantown Recreation Network has been calling for $500,000 to be reallocated to the 1997-'98 budget to 168 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 increase the maintenance staff right away to carry out preventive maintenance, and I understand that would increase probably around people. Of 5 course, this would increase the baseline for the 6 1998-'99 funding. m. , or overnight, including 11 holidays and weekends, along with equipment and 12 supplies. This should promote increased 13 volunteering and allow for senior citizen 14 activities and social service support. 15 The third priority should be specifically for the after-school program. 50, and to provide increased supplies. These after-school coordinators should relate to the children's schools and parents, to be informed of the homework assignments, be ready to create additional assignments when necessary. 169 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Schools should be encouraged to give weekend homework. Rich kids get more homework on the weekends, not less. Ideally, in addition to offering tutoring and homework help and enrichment activities, the centers should have a quiet place where students could study at any time if their homes are not conducive to serious academic pursuits. To summarize, that is $500,000 added to this year's budget, and $2,500 above the current budget for next year. We are talking about public money. In addition, it is appropriate for citizen groups, private enterprise, and recreation policy advisory councils to raise more and expand further the activities of the different centers. Badly needed capital funding is a whole separate topic, which I will leave to others. The mission of the Greater Germantown Recreation Network is to promote peace and eliminate violence in the greater Germantown area by advocating for the children and recreation centers and playgrounds of Greater Germantown. We 170 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 have sort of assigned that the Recreation Districts 3 and 4. And in collaboration with other civic groups and government entities, by working to develop an effective citywide recreation system. The intent is to provide children with supervision, nurturance, and opportunities for growth and socialization in a safe, supervised and attractive environment during times when they are not at home or in school. It is intended that centers and playground become inclusive community centers that serve and empower children through age 18, and families, including senior citizens, regardless of racial, ethnic, or religious affiliation. While individuals in the network may have political ambitions, involvement in the network is restricted to carrying out the stated mission. We will recognize and publicize all who support in action our mission, regardless of political party or political candidacy. We will avoid being used by individual candidates. The organization does not intend to endorse individual candidates or be involved in political campaigns 171 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No.
980687 beyond supporting nonpartisan registration drives. Our intent is to avoid competition and confrontation; rather, to promote and collaboration among the citizens, unions, the Recreation Department, politicians, and the private economic sector for the sake of our children in the communities in which they live. I make a point of this because, in some corners, we have been viewed with suspicion, and some individuals have felt threatened that if they participate in our endeavors, their centers will lose what little extra funding they receive. We are seeking partners in our endeavors and are encouraged by this hearing. It is important for the Mayor, City Council representatives, and other public officials to recognize that the recreation system must become a serious priority in the struggle to eliminate violence and crime in the streets. In addition to helping many youngsters get ahead, strengthening the recreation system will be cost-effective, diminishing the need for more expensive and less effective institutions of 172 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 incarceration. It makes good sense to allocate more cents. Thank you for your attention.
Do you have any centers that belong to the network that are not in the 8th Councilmatic District?
Oh, yes. We have a couple from Councilman Nutter's district.
Oh, okay. MS, KENNEDY: Districts and go up into Chestnut Hill, into a little bit of Roxborough. I can't remember them, I'm going to try to visit all of them.
Okay, I was just trying to figure out who was intimidating them, me or Nutter. (Laughter.)
No one could be intimidated by me. 173 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Oh, okay. Just for information purposes. Can I ask one question before you go, Greg. Are there any other groups that we don't have your name, you're here to testify and we may not have your name? 'Cause we have -- we have friends of the Dell East and we have. . .
Right. Charmain Sudler, Haddington Council Health Project.
And we have Fred Meyers. And what about Vivien Hansbury?
She left, okay. Okay, Greg. Thank you. (Greg Paulmieri comes forward.) 174 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Greg Paulmier, Democratic Ward Leader, in Germantown. Thank you. Good evening, Councilman Nutter, Councilwoman Miller. I will read my testimony. I've been working with the rec centers and the playgrounds in my ward and in my area, helping them with staffing problems, equipment problems, working with them to see the problems succeed. I also have a very long involvement with the Wissahickon Boys and Girls Club, of which I am President. Recently, I've been involved with the Germantown Recreation Network. I've learned a great deal about the problems which these kind of services providing organizations face. More than that, I've learned how valuable, how really essential the work is that they do. Let me make a few points about the work which they do. First, they are all of the education system of the City. The schools and education are the number-one issue now with the people, and I think that it should be. And I just want to say that the Recreation Department is a vital, primary part of public education in this city. 175 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Kids learn at these centers. They learn important social interaction skills at an early age, which they will have -- which they will have when they attend school. They participate in organized group activities, they learn discipline and how to pay attention and how to be respectful of their peers and adults, and how to enjoy a cooperative group activity. Without learning these things, a child cannot sit still and learn in school. Wholesome, healthy play is a necessity for kids; it is not a luxury. It is a basic part of their development. All educators know this, and that is why so many good schools require participation in extracurricular activities. To be complete individuals, adults need the opportunity to work, and children need the opportunity to play. It is not something which we can afford to neglect. Second, money provided to rec centers and recreation programs is an excellent bargain for the City because so many of the people working at these places are volunteers. Volunteers at rec centers do a tremendous amount of work for the 176 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 City at nothing more than the cost of support and management. If the city provides adequate maintenance, equipment and supplies to these people, they will donate a valuable amount of labor. Again, if the City hires adequate, competent, paid staff, then those staff people can attract and coordinate a number of volunteers. On the other hand, if the City fails to provide maintenance, equipment, and basic support for the volunteers, they will be unable to function, they will be discouraged, they will give up and stay home. The City will have lost the opportunity to get an excellent value for its money. Rec centers will go to hell and other children will pay the price of our foolish economy. Third, that recreational programs and resources reduce crime is an established fact. That is why the Police Athletic League exists. Certainly teenagers and young adults with recreational outlets are far less likely to be involved in crime and antisocial activities. But also, younger children benefit from 177 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 recreation, do better in school, and are less likely to fall into antisocial behavior later, which is an intelligent, proactive, cost-effective way to reduce crime in the City. There you have it, the three biggest concerns for the residents of the City of Philadelphia: crime, high taxes, and education. Strongly funding recreation programs addresses all three. It improves education, it reduces crime, it saves the City money both by supporting volunteerism and by early intervention into costly social programs. Here is what I have to say about the current level of operations of the recreation centers in and around my ward: It is a disgrace.
The Happy Hollow Recreation Center, the oldest center in the City of Philadelphia, on Wayne Avenue, has broken windows, has many other problems. It's had broken windows, just the windows alone have been broken for three and a half years. I work with Happy Hollow Advisory Committee. We have submitted work request after work request after work request; nothing happens. 178 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 It is just one example. Others persist throughout the facility. And I'm just talking about the physical building, let alone the programs run there. And similar things are true at other centers -- Lonnie Young, Wissahickon, Waterview, Wister, the list go on. What the damage and the neglect does to the community studio is big to calculate. It's a disaster. I know that you are going to tell me that money is or has been budgeted to address some of these place, and the Recreation Department has been working to improved the centers, but the fact remains that at my end, at the places I visit and the people I talk to and deal with, the situation is terrible, unjustifiably terrible. I ask the Special Committee on Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Affairs and the City Council to give to the rec centers the highest priority, which they need, which they must have. I ask you to devote both money, organization, and political will, which is required to make them serve the vital needs of the children and families of our neighborhoods. 179 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 On behalf of Obia Adams and the Waterview Recreation Center, and Obia Adams was unable to stay, and he also was a strong participant in the Germantown Recreation Network, as was I. The Waterview Recreation Center is in need of many, many repairs. Some, just some of those repairs include: the tiles on the floor are coming up. The floor is not difficult to walk with tiles coming up. The maintenance staff presently is injured; there is no maintenance staff person. Light bulbs -- I mean, this a volunteer asking for some things in order that they be able to correct some of these problems. Light bulbs are unavailable. You know, without proper support, the volunteers at Waterview are going to be unable to do what they need to do to run the programs they need to run.
Greg, let me ask you a question, only in the essence of time. Is there a relatively comprehensive list from Mr. Obia Adams of the outstanding maintenance or more operating budget items that need to be taken care of at that center?
If he has done it, and I 180 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 can't answer that for Obia, but if they have done what we have done at Lonnie Young, at Happy Hollow, at Wister, at Wissahickon, if the rec centers in my ward, if they have done that, which is to fill out the work orders, those work orders should be available through the Department of Recreation.
And I would think that it would behoove us to examine those work orders so that we're not sitting here next year complaining about the same problems again.
Hold on for a second. Commissioner, you'll have the appropriate personnel develop a workup on -- (Commissioner DiBerardinis responds off-mike -- inaudible at first.) COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: . . . but there is a $2.8 million major renovation headed there. It's been a long time coming. It's more than enough money, and that's a major accomplishment for every goal. Waterview has been under intensive 181 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 (inaudible). . . it was bad. We've been working there since that time (inaudible). I would contend there's been major improvements in that facility over the last eight months. People may disagree with me about that but (inaudible).
Okay. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Are we completed? No. There's about a quarter million dollars scheduled to come in. If do this right within six months to a year, the place should be where it needs to be.
Okay. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: (Inaudible) other places need work.
All right. If you can, as I know you do, and we get the periodic reports, if you could -- whoever the appropriate neighborhood contacts are, if someone could keep them up to date on, you know, whatever phase of the project things are at that those location -- it's in design, it's moving out to bid, it's -- work start-date, whatever. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: We'll share the whole (inaudible) facilities that are 182 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 mentioned and any others that the Coalition needs, we'd be more than happy to provide.
If the work orders are filled out and sent downtown, and things don't happen per that work, that the staff does and the volunteers do, in essence, it would be better not to have the work orders filled out at all. Because, in essence, what we're sending is a message to the staff that we're telling you to do something, and then we're not following through and completing it. So I guess there has to be a decision here at some point. If the City can't afford to fulfill their obligation and maintain these centers, they should not request that volunteers and the center operators --
-- do the work that they are doing. And, in essence, you know, it's backfiring, and it's having them get disillusioned even that much more.
So I mean, either they 183 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 shouldn't be filled out at all or they should be followed through with; it shouldn't be done the way it's done.
I do need to respond a little bit on the subject of Waterview. The collection is out of date now because it was about six months ago, I think, that Commissioner DiBerardinis did give us the pile of work orders. What we haven't properly done is find the time to find out which ones were responded to and which ones weren't, and so I feel badly that he went through the effort and we didn't follow through. Also to acknowledge there have been major improvements in Waterview.
You are guilty of neglect, and you are sentenced to three and a half to five years -- no. 25 (Laughter.) 184 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
But there still is a great deal more that needs to be done. And by the time those floors are fixed, we need to paint the thing over again.
It's a constant process. Why don't we make this the last comment from this panel.
Yeah, at Happy Hollow Recreation Center, we recently lost one of the full-time workers there. We had two full-time workers there. This is the first center in the City of Philadelphia, Happy Hollow. It's a mess, we've lost staffing in the last couple years -- one full-time staff person, which is a lot of staffing -- and the place is a wreck. We filled out all of the work orders. It serves a tremendous population in my ward, and it needs -- you know, we need to make the City more accountable to it. 185 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 It's just not acceptable to us.
Okay, we understand, and certainly the appropriate people have heard you here today on both sides of the rail. Thank you. Thanks for coming in.
Doris Gwaltney and Bertha Parker from Carroll Park. (Ms. Gwaltney and Ms. Parker come forward.) (Applause.)
And is there a Fred Meyers here or something? UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: Fred Maurer.
Good evening. I'm Doris Gwaltney, from Carroll Park. I chair the Carroll Park Neighbors Steering Committee.
Please spell your name for the record. 186 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
First, the Carroll Park Neighbors would like to thank Councilman Nutter, who has supporting us from the very beginning of our efforts in Carroll Park. And also the Commissioner DiBerardinis and Tom Fox, we know these gentlemen on a first-name basis because they do respond to us and they come out to us whenever we ask them to. So we really are very grateful for all the services they provide to us. But I think the one issue here, that Stephanie Andrews pointed out, that the important of these neighborhood parks, they are vitally important, they are the backbone of our neighborhoods. We need clean, open space for people to come to. We have senior citizens in our area, and when you have a clean, safe place for them to come, these house-bond seniors can walk maybe one or two blocks and spend an hour or so out in the open with children, listening to children's laughter as they're playing on our equipment out in Carroll Park. So that's vitally important. 187 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 And also, the City is always -- which we heard before at the testimony. The City sort of emphasizes the platinum cardholders who come to visit the City. And we in the neighborhoods were on the carrying card board -- and I was -- we are there, and we will always be there. And our concern mainly is to keep what we have, to maintain what we have. Because we're going to be there forever. We didn't visit; we live there, we're going to stay there.
And we need all the help that we can get from anybody anywhere.
You're welcome. We will continue to support you. Thank you.
My name is Bertha Parker, P-A-R-K-E-R, and I am Secretary of the Friends of Carroll Park. And I just want to say thank you to Councilman Nutter and to the Recreation Department for all that they've done for us and, I'm sure, all that they are planning to do for us. 188 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
And you'll see more. Thank you. Thank you for staying, I appreciate it.
Okay, we will enter that into the record as if it was read. You can maybe make it --
Well, I'd like to read it since I'm here. I'm your last guest.
Actually, you're not the last guest. I'm going to ask while you're testifying -- I have a general listing of the Family of the Dell East, Yvonne Downey and Joan Henry -- there may be others. So why don't you come up to the table. So for whenever Mr. Maurer 189 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 is complete, and Mr. Maurer, go ahead.
Okay, my name is Fred Maurer. It's spelled M-A-U-R-E-R. And I use recreation facilities in the Northeast, mostly Olney, Tarkin, Lawncrest, and Zeiler. I also do volunteer work in my community. And I want to advise the Council on problems I have experienced in the past year while using Department playgrounds. First, I feel offended that we have used play facilities for commercial advertising to generate operating funds. I do not want to see commercial messages while I am inside to use City facilities. Our playgrounds should be a respite from commercialism. We should not take away the qualities of what we are trying to instill or reduce the satisfaction from recreational values. Even benign commercials like a local pizza shop is contradictory to our recreation mission. Why must we impose an annoyance on our patrons with unwanted commercial activities that are not essential to our program. Do we want our patrons to enjoy our 190 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 playground experience or are we trying to influence them to go out next to places for cigarettes and beer or where to hang out. The logical extension of an advertising program allows other commercial advertising rights, and our City zoning laws cannot stand when any business owner demands their equal right of free speech. Our new program for creating income for advertising is foolish behavior. Our tax dollars should go to create places of home life environment, with no external commercial activities. Many of our centers have irregular hours, and some centers are considered as unattended. I have gone to a center and found it locked and with lights ablaze inside, and I even heard voices but when I rang the bell, there was no answer. I went to one center where there was no 21 doorbell, and I had to pound on a steel plate to find out if anyone was inside. I have gone to centers for deliveries and found there is no mail slot or deposit box or for any letter that I want to do deliver. 191 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Going to a locked center is an unfriendly welcome. Proper signage is needed. All centers should include signs displaying regular hours and alternative messages for locked doors, and especially in the emergency numbers. My experiences with City employees have shown they are friendly but not communicative or led to an appropriate response. The tree crew was very hard to get. After getting them, they made promises and never did any work as requested. After talking to the supervisor and the manager, it still do not work. It is apparent that they want to give the impression of being cooperative but they are allowed to ignore work problems. I have sent two letters to the Commissioner about this. I do not have any hope. Cleaning outside at the Olney Rec Center is needed. I have collected trash there and left it for the next weekly pick up. It was never picked up, even when I called the supervisor and got two promises. Six weeks later and a confrontational threat to get that pile removed, that is an unreasonable amount of time, and it shows negligence. It proves that they are not 192 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 working from work reports or accepting work initiated from volunteers. I think that center needs at least a weekly supervisory inspection, and maintenance should be scheduled whenever problems are found. Just a drive through the park is not acceptable. One time, I met a work crew and asked them to take away some trash that I piled up at the Civil War monument. " Well tomorrow never came, it's still there. The amount of broken glass here is horrendous. Our volunteers broom-swept the driveway this season, but more glass came later. Last month, one of our volunteers got a flat tire from broken glass, and he will not return for more harm. We need to mechanically sweep all driveways and parking services regularly.
Every shopping center mall uses power-sweeping and dirt collection to keep their tarmac clean. Our recreational centers must be kept clean. We have no less responsibility than every home owner or business to keep our promises and premises clean 193 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 and in good repair. The success of the Department is only a little bit better than problems that had existed before the present commissioner took office. I appreciate their friendliness, but I'd rather value performance. It still shows there was a need for appropriate funding to operate our current commitments and to give tender loving care in our centers. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Maurer. (Family of Dell East panel members come forward.)
And to my -- I believe, last but not least, to my friends in the green name tags.
Good evening. My name is Yvonne Downey, D-O-W-N-E-Y. With me, I have Joann Henry, H-E-N-R-Y, and Ken Knight, K-N-I-G-H-T. 194 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
We are part of a family here today, representing the Family of the Dell East. The Dell East is an ampitheater located in East Fairmount Park, which seats approximately 10,000 constituents. Those of us here today are only a small are presentation of the 450 family members who serve as advocates for the Dell East. Our group represents various ethnic groups, professions, age groups, from young adults to elders, and constituents from all over Philadelphia. The Dell East not only brings Philadelphians from all over the City out to enjoy concerts under the stars and various other forms of entertainment, but it's also a tourist attraction. It brings people to our fair city and to this institution. To us, that's important. One of the charges of our mission is to serve as advocates for long-term improvements, maintenance, modernization of the entire Dell East facility. Thus the reason for our appearance here before you today. We are very appreciative of the support 195 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 rendered to the Dell East by the City of Philadelphia and by the Department of Recreation for the past 27 years. And, as you are surely aware, anything aging requires upkeep and maintenance to maintain its healthy appearance. Our purpose today is to enlist your support. We are concerned about the Dell East entering the new millennium. We have some major safety issues which must be addressed and resolved. The Dell East is suffering from an undermining conditions due to a continued drainage problem. Almost one fifth of the seating area is involved. The Dell East deserves to be preserved and maintained, and the people deserve a safe environment in every sense of the word. Now, this situation is not new. It surfaced its ugly head about ten years ago and was to have been remedied some eight years ago. A budget allocation was made by City Council. But in the early nineties, when the City of Philadelphia experienced a financial crunch and a fiscal crisis, the $2 million in funds allocated for this project redirected and never restored. 196 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
We would like to see those funds restored in the new capital budget and have these much-needed renovations completed. We are asking that you consider a three-year capital program for the Dell East. This would enable to us resolve the immediate problem and assist in preserving an institution that is part of Philadelphia's pride and history. Architectural and structural plans have been completed and readied for the resolution of this problem and are available for your perusal. If I may summarize, we need your financial support to provide structural support for the seats and stage, improved lighting, and improvement upon other issues pertinent to the safety and well-being of the public, which consists of your fellow constituents, visitors to our city, and family and friends of the Dell East. We would ask that you consider this request, focus your attention to this matter when budget preparations are made and know that the money allocated to this project will be an investment in an institution which is a part of the City of Philadelphia's rich history, past and 197 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 present. MS. DOWNEY, MS. HENRY,
(In unison.) We need to make these repairs, we need $5 million, we need your support, and the City of Philadelphia needs the Dell East. (Applause.)
My only question is: Did you practice this over at the Dell East? (Laughter.)
Actually, a couple quick questions. How much -- you said that eight to ten years ago, money had been programmed for the Dell East to do a wide variety of things, and then I know about the '90-'91 crisis. The $5 million that you're now talking about, what was the original figure?
Okay, 2 now to 5. The things that you want to do with the 5, are they the things that have been planned for with the $2 million eight to ten years ago.
And have you had 198 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 discussions directly with the Recreation Department about these issues?
I'm Ken Knight, and I'm the President of the Family of the Dell East..
Yes, the Department is aware of our circumstance, because our circumstance is their circumstance. The problem is the lack of money. And as the $2 million goes, as you know, it was $2 million then, and it's $5 million now. Next year, the figure just climbs. But I don't think enough can be said about the Dell East because the Dell East is the -- is a Philadelphia institution. It's on a par with the Philadelphia Zoo. I came by the Zoo recently, you know, when they had that great fire and the citizens responded to that fire, and they responded to the Zoo situation. We're asking that same kind of response. I mean, I was there, I seen RDA doing some infrastructure things to their 199 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 pavement just the other day. And I'm saying, we're asking for that same type of support. When you look at the Dell East, it serves as a hub for the community development in that neighborhood.
And as the Dell East goes, there goes the community, there goes the neighborhood.
Why don't I do this. I planned to ask the Commissioner to come back up for some request items, and I still would like to do that, but I did notice one person who was on the list who was not here earlier is here. John Boyce, do you still wish to testify? Okay. What I'd like to have what I now to be the last citizen to testify, and then I'm going to discuss with the Commissioner on the record the Dell East situation, and then make my information request as we wrap up the hearing. Do you have other information that you want to share?
I would just like to add this. The Dell East is embarking on a new 200 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 millennium and going places where it's never been before, going to attract conventioneers and other promoters, and we're doing everything that we can possibly do to be self-supportive, and we just think that at this point, we need our leaders to respond in kind to our situation and just fix this thing that's been broken for sometime now. Thank you.
And as I think about it, the Dell has always been a benefit, suffering, I believe, to some extent with the closure of the Strawberry Mansion Bridge, which originally was scheduled to reopen to one lane of traffic in each direction in September. But a funny thing happened on the way to rehabilitation, and we find out other things are wrong. So now it probably won't open until the tail-end effort, winter into spring. But I have every reason to believe that there will be traffic back on the Strawberry Mansion Bridge by the time the season starts up. And it will be a beautiful bridge and then we'll have the Dell which is essentially the first thing you're going to see when you come over the bridge when you go into the North 201 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Philadelphia, and it not been up to par.
Okay. Let me get the other citizen on and the Commissioner on, and we'll talk about the Dell. Thank you. (Applause.)
My name is John Boyce, how do I identify myself? Just say where I'm from?
Well, however you want, unless you're being looked for by the police. (Laughter.)
Okay, I'm a resident of Roxborough, in Philadelphia, the northwest section 18 of Philadelphia. I'm President of the Friends of Gorgus Park, which is a recreation park located in Roxborough.
I just came here to relate my experience in the last few years with two sites in Roxborough -- one is the Kendrick Recreation Center, and the other is Gorgus Park, which I am 202 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 now involved with, have been involved with for about a year and a half.
My experience has been that we have been able to, from a community effort -- through community efforts, to restore both the Kendrick Recreation Center and to bring back Gorgus Park. And we've had a willing partner with the Recreation Department Commissioner DiBerardinis and, of course, yourself, Michael, you've been very helpful. You're our Councilman. There's been a lot of money invested in capital. The Kendrick Recreation Center has gotten a new ball field; it used to be cinders. " And this is in a recreation center. Right at the bottom of the list is tot equipment, a tot area. It was very hazardous. The Rec Department appropriated a lot of money, the City of Philadelphia did. There was new ball fields, the hill was cleared. One of the biggest -- it's an A site in Philadelphia, it's one of the biggest recreation centers. It's an 203 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 old building. It got all new windows, a new roof, new lighting, just a tremendous amount of capital investment in getting it in the shape it should be in. Recently, Gorgus Park, our group was selected for a partnership which partners our group with William Penn Foundation money, by the way. It partners the Friends of Gorgus Park with the Recreation Department and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. The Commissioner and you have seen to it that money has been put into the park. The grant from the William Penn Foundation, by the way, was $30,000. We've used about 13,000 of it already, and we've earmarked the other $17,000 for improvements in the park. " It's a really attractive building, a useful building. And thanks to the Commissioner, he gave it the go-ahead for the Recreation Department's maintenance crew to go in there and rehab it. That was a building could have been demolished, it was in such bad shape. 204 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Now it's been completely restored, and it's a great asset to the community. The equipment that we've purchased through our grant from the William Pennsylvania Foundation, we store now in that Park House, and we use the equipment to mow the grass, cut down weeds, prune trees. We do a lot of things that really the Recreation Department, if they had the staffing and they had the resources, they could do themselves. The danger is that we have put in thousands of community service hours in the park -- literally thousands over the last year and a half to two years. We only formed the group a year and a half ago, but people were working in the park before then. We pruned literally every tree in the park. This was strictly a volunteer effort. And what we found out was the reason why the trees weren't pruned in the park and the reason why the park had a danger, forbidding kind of feel to it was because the Rec Department only has one pruning crew. So over 30 years, they probably did a little bit of damage control in the park. But 205 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 we have all these huge Norway maples and oak trees, and these things just got so overgrown, that you couldn't see into the park. At that time also, where the Rec Department would come into the park, being short-staffed, throughout the summer, we might get our grass cut three times. And when it was cut, it was cut down so short that it would kill the grass in the summer, and we would have a dust bowl. I should say that Gorgus Park is a 20-acre. It was bequeathed to the City of Philadelphia in 1893. It was dedicated as a park in 1895. It's just a beautiful space, and it's on one of the highest elevations in the City of Philadelphia, and it was completely neglected. It's right in the heart of the neighborhood, and the neighborhood was embarrassed by it. Over these last two years, we have brought the park back. We have events in the park. We had a fine arts festival, we have a harvest festival. We're going to have a Christmas celebration in the park.
We're brought the park back and we've gotten all the help, I think, that 206 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 the Rec Department can give us. What we're afraid of is that all the gains that we've made and that the community has made, that we're going to lose it if, you know, our volunteers, for some reason, if we disband over time or somebody gets sick. You know, we have a seasonal worker. " He cuts the grass in the park with the equipment William Penn Foundation money. And he is out there, he cuts the grass, he cuts the leaves. We used to have big piles of leaves that blew down through the business district. We blow them into piles. We have a leaf blower, so we blow them into piles and spread 'em out and then we cut them with our mowers. What we really need, I think, is a full-time person, a caretaker in the park, which was what was provided for by the City probably a good 30 or 40 years ago. And people in Roxborough say, Well, the park hasn't looked as good as it does now in 40 years and probably has never looked 207 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 better. But all these gains that have been made at Gorgus Park, at Kendrick, they could really go by the wayside if they're not maintained. And that's our fear. I'm a firm believer in taking care of public spaces. I think that, you know, if you've got wealth, that you need to provide for public spaces, the common areas that everyone uses and everyone takes pride in but that everyone is embarrassed by if they're neglected. And not just embarrassed, but it sends a message to children that nobody cares. These are areas that children can use, where there are tot lots, where there should be activities. Kids don't have places to play; they need the parks, they need the rec centers. So our belief is -- Our friends of Gorgus Park group and I think the volunteers and the people that have been involved with Kendrick is that the Recreation Department needs resources. They need maintenance people, they need seasonal workers, they need people to take care of these assets in our community, that if 208 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 they're neglected, are going to be really just very damaging to the neighborhood and to the quality of life in our neighborhood.
Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. And on the one hand certainly acknowledging the gains that have been made. When there is cooperation, things actually do happen areas come back. And at the same time, expressing your concern about sustainability and the ongoing maintenance and upkeep. And it would truly be tragic there were any slippage back to where you came from. So that's, again, a part of the hearing process, why we're here today. But it helps to have, you know, the true life stories of bad situation/good situation and now you want to, you know, keep it at a certain level so. . . . Thank you. Thanks for coming in, and I'm glad you were able to may go it.
Are there any other citizens, people who are not in the government who wish to testify on Resolution 980687. 209 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 (No response.)
Seeing none, let me ask Commissioner DiBerardinis and a couple of his folks to come up. We now have the real questions that we'd like to ask you, so come prepared. (Commissioner DiBerardinis et al return to witness table.)
As the Commissioner is coming up, I'd like to get on the record that there was -- I'm not sure whether this was entered -- testimony by Leonard Wearing, Executive Director of Grays Ferry West Community Action Committee. That testimony will be added to the record as if read. There are support letters from Friends of Elmwood Park, Friends of Philadelphia Parks, Barrett Playground Advisory Council, and the Project for Public spaces. I don't know if testimony was left. I know that Vivien Hansbury, President of the Wynnefield Residents Association was here to testify. And also Dr. Robin Foster Drane (ph.), Charmain Sudler, and Linda Marie Grenich (ph.) and Pastor Frank Willy, all on behalf of the 210 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 Haddington Community Health Project and To Our Children's Future with Health. Commissioner, first let's talk about the Robin Hood Dell East. First, I guess, tell me what you know of some of the issues with the Dell East. And then tell me of our plans for the Dell East. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, I can speak programmatically with some authority on the capital -- infrastructure questions. If you don't mind, I would ask Warren Haskins, who is the Facility Director to speak to that.
Sure. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Just quickly on the programmatic side, the folks from the Friends group testified correctly that the Dell is growing in its program offerings in addition to the City-funded events, which involve the ethnic festivals as well as our concert series. Over the last few years, we have been working with private promoters to add a whole 'nother layer of concerts at the facility. We've also been using it increasingly for special 211 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 events, and we've hosted a second America's Promise -- now Philadelphia's Promise -- there. We've just hosted this fall a sort of "Stop-the- Violence" youth concert there. And we are being approached by other outside interests. And one of them that we're currently talking about, a boxing program there, with some pretty high-caliber matches. So that part of it's going well. I think our goal is to make the Dell. . . to use it to its -- again, it's sort of like William Penn.
Right. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: How do we use the facility beyond our City program dollars? We're moving forward on that, and I think we've made some gains in the last few years and are poised to move it forward. The other question, though, around the infrastructure questions.
Right. Do we have a good assessment of what it's infrastructure -- COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Issues are? 212 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
-- needs are and any handle on cost estimates? And are there any dollars in the capital program directed toward the Dell? If there are, how much is it, and when do we anticipate an appropriate level of work being done there? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Well, Warren can talk -- well, Eric -- Warren can about it, I think, and Eric can talk about whatever the issues are, the infrastructure issues. And then Eric can give you a more detailed status of the capital work.
Basically, we're looking at the long-term health of the Dell that has resulted basically from a past-history problem that needs to be corrected at this point.
Right. 213 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
Twelve or fifteen years ago, we had found that the Dell had undergone a series of undermining.
Correct. And City Council, as they stated, had allocated the funds for that, and it was zapped for the crisis. We have some immediate repairs that need to be done now and season '99, opening of May of '99, which we are on the capital budget for that for $225,000.
Those are immediate repairs. We have a speaker tower which is ready to come down.
So you're trying to deal with immediate safety issues right now.
Correct, correct. COMMISSIONER RICE: Right. 214 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
And those immediate things will be done. I met with the architect this morning.
And you expect to have those taken care of prior to the new season?
What are the larger and longer-term -- what was the --
Yeah, the undermining, the original purpose of the dollars that were allocated and then things that have happened since.
We're in the process of being here now, asking you for those larger dollars.
You're actually not 215 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 here to ask me for any additional dollars; you're here to tell me about the problems and respond to the direct questions that I've asked you about the problems, but I know that you're not here to ask me for any money, correct? (Laughter.)
I'm trying to help you, I'm trying to help you help yourself.
Just answer the question I've asked. What are the longer-term problems, and how much does it cost to fix them?
Beyond is 225. And overhead lighting. As a matter of fact, we're facing a couple lawsuits because they determined that we've had inadequate lighting in the venue and in the parking area. So the $5 million would accommodate the lighting and the undermining. 216 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 The stage and the shell will be done between now and June in the 225.
What I would like to ask you to do is to get me -- get to the Chair and get to myself -- this starts again into kind of to District Council issues. The Dell's located in the 4th District. If you can get me a detailed analysis of all the various problems and the current price tag that goes along with them. Put them in a priority order that makes sense regarding the structural safety, security, and then I'm sure you're going get into upgrade, cosmetics, how do you make it a better place. But certain things have to be done, I'm sure, in a certain order that, you know, different people may agree or disagree about the order, but it has to be done in a way similar to if a rec center had problems, say you've got a roof problem and a floor problem, you're always going to fix the roof problem first to ensure the structural integrity of the place before you go and fix the floor. So with that in mind, give me a list 217 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 telling me, These are the ten things we need done, this is the order we need them down in, and this is the price tag goes along with those things, okay?
Eric, do you have any additional information on the capital side? I mean beyond the 225 that's in -- if you're saying in the current FY '99 budget, tell me about anything that's in the capital program.
And it's with that money that we sent an architect out to begin the programming for some of these repairs.
The extent of the undermining is probably going to be more than could have been handled with the first appropriation. 218 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 The other issues that Warren has mentioned are significant: security lighting, a sound power source for the lighting. We are not on an energy backup system there, and the stage towers are critical too. We also need lighting in a recently-added parking lot, which is unlit.
A recently-added parking lot, which had not been lit. These items, these immediate items alone will easily take up the budget that's already been appropriated in the two fiscal years.
All right. Well, along with the list that Warren is going to provide, if you can get me a project schedule for the FY '98 dollars and the FY '99 dollars, and let me know what's going to be done, when's it going to be start, and when's it going to be completed. And then I'd like to have a separate discussion with you about FY 2000, as you are now in or about to be in the capital budget call with the Planning Commission for the upcoming fiscal year.
Yes. 219 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687
And see what we can do with the larger list and get pieces of it into this upcoming year's capital budget. All right?
Okay, thank you. Commissioner, based on the testimony from the citizens and some of our questions and answers when you were up earlier, and I do greatly appreciate your staying through this. Sometimes -- I don't think we've ever had this problem with recreation, but there have been occasions in the past where we've had difficulty keeping some of our departments to listen to citizens and to try to understand their frustrations. But what I'd like to ask you to do is to get to the committee, through the Chair proposed, the budgets and operational use of funds that indicate what you would do with a half a million dollars, a million dollars, a million and a half, and two million; what your priorities would be for the use of any of those four different budgets; the areas that you're trying to address, the number of staff, and the increases in 220 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 equipment or supplies; and what particular goal you would seek to pursue on a priority basis if you had those dollars available to you. The second is, if we can begin even in a draft fashion, the putting together of the other thing we talked about, which was standards. And some form of recreation inspection performance and accountability program that develops certain standards of cleanliness, safety, appearance, structural issues, and there could be a number of other components that you would add to that. What the inspection would be, who's going to do the inspections, whether there would be current people in the Department or possibly new staff to conduct such inspections, and how the reporting process would work to ensure follow-up and accountability. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Would you be interested in both program and maintenance, or --
And not to add any further burden to you, but with both of these, given where we are in our schedule, one, naturally 221 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 the budget items, both the larger ones and certainly the Dell East issue that we raised, I would ask for a priority on those because we're in the middle of the budget season. But in relatively short order, again, just even a draft of a proposal of what you would put together in terms of an accountability and performance program. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: If it's a draft and it's looked on as a piece for discussion, I wouldn't have any problem working with my staff and various level of the Department to try to get something down.
Sure, sure. Okay, that's fine. COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Okay.
Anything for us? COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: I just want to thank you for --
You just want to be able to go, right? (Laughter.) COMMISSIONER DIBERARDINIS: Actually, this hasn't been too, I didn't mind this too 222 PARKS, RECREATION, CULTURAL AFFAIRS - Res. No. 980687 much. I learned some stuff today. But I appreciate your willingness to do this and to take an interest in the Department.
Sure, no problem. Thank you for help and your cooperation. This public hearing is adjourned -- or recessed to the call of the Chair. Thank you. (Adjourned at 6:37 p.m.) - - - 223 C E R T I F I C A T E I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of the City of Philadelphia of Thursday, November 12, 1998, were reported and accurately by me, and that this is a correct transcript of same. RE: SPECIAL COUNCIL COMMITTEE ON PARKS, RECREATION AND CULTURAL AFFAIRS RESOLUTION NO. 980687 __________________________________, JOSEPHINE CARDILLO, Registered Professional Reporter