Candidato para Director

I believe that this small district needs a total reorgaization of how we provide services and of staff roles and responsibities to best meet the needs of the community. We have a limited amount of resources and have to be smart about how we make the best use of them to serve everyone in the community. Most other local agencies did this during the economic crisis becasue they had no choice and have found that they actually run more efficiently now. Not only did Ambrose not do this but they continued to raise the wages and benefits for it 6 full time employees while providing little or no services to the taxpayers.

Amborse has only 6 full time employees and several part time employees, they have 8 parks but those parks comprise only 21 acres, which we pay an outside landscaper to maintain. We do have a teen center which is funded completly with grants that are not part of the general fund. We offer a couple of sports programs for youth that are also funded with grants, even the special events for the holidays are almost completly funded with grants. We are a park and recreation district and should be offering recreational activities for the community using the general fund but after paying our employees there is not much left for recreation programs. We need to make sure the positions we have are the right positions to meet the needs of the community and the mission of the park district.

I think we need a facilities manager, who has an expertise in how to use and upkeep the facilities in a way that provides more programs for the community while being aware of where improvements and changes needs to be made, in a hands-on manner. We don't need two full time clerical positions for payroll for less than 10 people, pay bills once a month, and do a board packet once a month.

The bottom line is the existing board and staff are resistent to change and feel that" this is the way we have always done things" but if we don't change we will literally be spending our entire budget on just wages, benefits, and utility bills.

In 2008 the Board of the Ambrose Recreation and Park District made a hasty and ill informed decision to close the Ambrose Pool. I was Park Foreman at the time and was preparing the pool to open for Memorial Day when I recieved a call from the General Manager telling me to empty the pool, so I had no choice but to do so. The board tried to blame the county for the closure, until the county spoke up and said they had no role in decision, in the meanwhile they spent over a quarter million dollars paying RJM to develop a multi-million dollar proposal when there was only 1.2 millon dollars available in grant funding for the project. When as predicted the bids for the project came in way over budget the board sat there on there hands and did nothing to move the project forward or even maintain the park for years.

I finally got fed up and ran for the board in 2012 and was able to get elected. I brought the pool project up at every meeting and demanded we have public meetings and start the process all over again. Even after hearing loud and clearly from the community that they wanted a pool the other members of the board continued to drag their feet and refused to hold the General Manager accountable when he ignored a board order to go out to bid on the pool project for 6 months. In February when the bid came in over budget again, I made a motion to use Ambrose reserve funds to move the project forward not one board member would second my motion to do so. It wasn't until I and many residents shared their frustration with Supervisor Glover, that he was willing to step in and make sure the project would get completed. He developed a plan for funding that the General Manager should have been able to do if he so desired.

Our work is not done however becasue some of the board and the General Manager have already said they are not sure how long the pool will remain open. I share their concerns because currently they are spending 98% of the general funds on wages, benefits, and day to day operations for the district leaving only 2% about $10,000 for recreation activities. We have to come up with a better way of using our funding and resources to meet the needs of the community and the mission of the district.