Earlier today (Friday, Nov. 12, 2010), City Council met to vote on changes to Mayor McGinn‘s proposed 2011-2012 City budget.
In September, the mayor proposed that drop-in access to the Green Lake Community Center be limited to just 15 hours a week. His budget also called for the conversion of three rooms, including the tot play space, to offices for 25 Parks Department employees. You can read about the mayor’s proposed budget here.
Today, City Council scaled back the mayor’s proposed cuts to the Green Lake Community Center significantly.
The Council voted 8-1 to adopt “Community Center Services,” a budget action which will add 15 weekly drop-in hours (in addition to the 15 proposed by the mayor) and a part-time recreation leader position to the Green Lake Community Center.
The budget action also saves two of the three rooms slated for office space in the mayor’s proposed budget. The drop-in tot play space and one of the two multipurpose rooms on the second floor will be preserved. However, one 980-square-foot multi-purpose room, representing 5.8% of the total square footage of the facility, will be converted to offices for Parks staff.
At a press conference this afternoon, Councilmember Sally Clark said that the conversion will be temporary, “until we can come up with a better plan for the staff.” Later, Mayor McGinn said that he was “hopeful” that service hours at community centers will be replaced “over the next few years.”
The one dissenting vote on the “Community Center Services” budget action came from Councilmember Tom Rasmussen. Rasmussen, who has visited Green Lake twice to discuss the 2011 budget (read about his visits here and here) said the following before the vote was taken:
I believe it’s inappropriate to be using the community centers for administrative office space.
My understanding is that the Parks Department has known for a year, perhaps longer than that, about these offices that are in the Armory that will have to be moved, and it seems as though they did not do a good enough job to find other space that would be affordable to the Department.
[...] This proposal is an improvement over what the mayor has proposed, but it doesn’t go far enough.
Initially, the Green Lake Community Center proposal would have devastated the preschool program and the children’s programs at Green Lake – they would have been moved or they would have been ended. Fortunately, the Department has withdrawn some of those proposals. Now, the preschool will continue and the tots’ play area on the second floor will continue to be used.
If we want to have a community, and neighborhoods, that support families, and if we want to have families with children in the city, then we need to provide affordable places for those families, and that includes our community centers.
[…] If the Department had consulted with the community better, I think they would have come up with a better proposal, but they didn’t, and I think that’s a failure on the part of Department leadership. I also think that the Department leadership should have worked with the front-line employees, to ask them what they thought they could do to reduce costs for the Parks Department, so that many of these reductions wouldn’t have to occur, and I don’t believe they did an adequate job with that as well.
So, I’m going to oppose this, and I hope that in the future the Department will work much more closely with the community before they start making changes to the community centers, and I hope also that they work with the front-line employees much more closely before they affect their jobs.
Councilmember Sally Bagshaw then spoke. “I believe that what Councilmember Rasmussen has said is entirely true,” she said. “I have been in conversations with Acting Superintendent Christopher Williams, and believe that [the Parks Department] will reopen this for discussion.”
The next item up for vote was a Statement of Legislative Intent (SLI) titled “Community Center Partnerships and Planning Analysis“:
The City Council requests that the Parks Department, working closely with their established community leaders and recreational partners (including the Associated Recreation Council and the City’s Advisory Councils), the City Budget Office, the City Council and Parks Department employees, conduct research and analysis on:
1. Increased partnerships for the management and operations of the City’s Community Centers,
2. Increased partnerships for planning and fundraising for the City’s Community Centers,
3. Alternate management, operational and staffing models for the City’s Community Centers.[...]
The Parks and Seattle Center Committee will review the results of the analysis beginning on or around June 2011, including any proposals for 2012 implementation.
The Community Center Partnerships and Planning Analysis SLI passed unanimously.
At a press conference this afternoon, Councilmember Bagshaw spoke specifically about the Green Lake Community Council meeting that she attended on Wednesday night. “As someone told me at the Green Lake neighborhood meeting, they’re concerned about accountability. We’re going to be there, to make sure that [...] these services will be overseen by [City] Council.”
Later, a reporter asked Councilmember Bagshaw if community input had been “truly persuasive in changing the direction of the decision” about community centers. Bagshaw smiled before emphatically stating one word: “Yes!”
The Council is expected to formally adopt the 2011-2012 Budget on Nov. 22, 2010 at 2 p.m.
Watch City Council vote on changes to the mayor’s proposed budget:
Watch City Council’s press conference:
Watch Mayor McGinn’s press conference:
A shout out to the genuine care and consideration shown by Councilman Rasmussen in this restoring some of the loss at Green Lake Community Center.
If your readers see nothing else in this story, I hope they read his thoughts and observations on community leadership. Only Rasmussen bothered to come to multiple meetings in the community and listen. He took careful notes, responded and made sure every voice was heard. It was beautiful.
We need community leaders like Rasmussen.
I am sad to see that recently elected council like Bagshaw and even the mayor appeared to think that rhetoric can stand in for values and action. Taking credit for the work of others does not count as listening or leadership in my book. Merely listening to what you want to hear, or cheer leading when the hard work is done, isn’t going to help our neighborhoods.
I hope Bagshaw and McGinn start taking some of their own notes soon or it doesn’t bode well for our city.
Thank goodness that Councilman Rasmussen doesn’t follow the pack.
[...] Councilmember Conlin reviewed the changes that City Council has made to Mayor McGinn’s proposed 2011-2012 City budget. On Friday, City Council added 15 weekly Green Lake Community Center drop-in hours to the 15 proposed by the mayor. They also saved two of the three rooms slated for office space in the mayor’s proposed budget. (You can read more about the changes City Council has made to the Mayor’s budget here.) [...]