For those of you who didn't follow along via my live updates in the chat, Greenville City Council and the Greenville Park Board met last night (Tuesday) to discuss the possibility of disbanding the park board and replacing it with a park advisory board that would fall within the city's governmental structure. The goal of any change would be to bring the operations of the park back under the purview of the city, with the street department assuming maintenance responsibilities in the park. As it currently stands, the park board is it's own independent entity, although it is funded either exclusively or near exclusively by the City of Greenville (it was noted that decades ago, when money wasn't as scarce, portions of the park budget were picked up by donors, non profits and other entities). Any change would be to allow tighter integration with the city and a sharing of employees, funds and other resources, presumably.
There was a lot of confusion around the process to do this, and it was stated that this has been discussed on and off for many years (or even decades, perhaps). Camille Baker, Law Director for the City of Greenville, stated that the only way to disband the park board would be the same way it was created: a ballot issue generated by the petition of the population. So, council and the park board themselves do not have the ability to modify the organizational structure as it exists. It must be done via popular vote on a ballot issue that has to be the result of a petition. The petition would require signatures from 5% of registered voters in the City of Greenville. Further, the petition would have to be submitted to the Board of Elections by August 8th in order to be on the November ballot, making it (in my opinion) a long shot at best to happen anytime soon. There is still outstanding questions about who would generate the ballot language and how that process would work.
The meeting included over an hour of public discussion on the idea. Many took the opportunity to stress what a great job Andy Mead, the only park employee, is doing given his limited time and resources. Several people expressed concern that the city may treat the park as a bi-product, or treat it with less care than those currently servicing it. This was met with responses from various council members and city officials stating that all city employees care deeply about all parts of the city and would approach any work in the park no differently than they do the rest of the city.
Many stated the need to keep the park strong and operational, as it is a central part of our community, and others discussed what they are doing and have tried to do to bring new life to the park.
Of particular note in the public comments were Shelley Miller and Amber and Rob Garrett. Shelley is running a swim program at the pool that was formed at the last minute and without advertisement. Despite those factors, the program's enrollment is full and has generated over $1,500 in revenue to the city via memberships to the swim program. She also stated that she has attracted kids from other communities, even communities with pools, who want to be a part of her program, and she believes the program could grow 5 fold if given time to organize and market it properly. She added that her program is proof that the pool can be profitable.
Amber and Rob Garrett spoke about their efforts to receive an updated contract for the roundhouse/bandshell. This updated contract was the beginning step for a group of people to help form a "Friends of the Greenville City Parks" non-profit group. They had as many as 22 people involved to donate time and money to bring entertainment and events to the park.
They first contacted the Park Board about this needed revision in January of 2012. They spoke of several hurdles and roadblocks they encountered in getting the information needed in order to proceed. They stated that in the 7 months they had been working on the project, nothing was able to come to fruition.
They stressed the need for the various officials to communicate and work together to enable willing and able citizens to take action to bring life and growth to the parks, regardless of the governmental organizational structure the city ends up with.
City officials plan to schedule another meeting in the next week or two in order to discuss details of what action can be taken and by whom.
