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<br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Community Recreation <br />June 28,1999 <br />Pag-e 2 <br /> <br />The youth organizations are a very high priority with Community <br />Recreation. As such, these organizations receive a great deal of time, work <br />effort, and attention from the Community Recreation staff. Because the <br />youth organizations are a priority, I believe that things such as registration, <br />field maintenance, and field scheduling for both practices and games are <br />much better today than they were seven or eight years ago. <br /> <br />A concern with having Community Education manage Community <br />Recreation relates to how high of a priority the youth organizations would be <br />in the total scheme of Community Education/Recreation. Additionally, there <br />is concern about what happens in case of a conflict between goals/programs of <br />Community Education (school) and Community Recreation (cities). History <br />has shown that some conflicts do arise between the cities and the school <br />district in such things as program goals, activities, scheduling facilities, etc., <br />and the loyalty of school district employees may lie with the school instead of <br />Community Recreation. Finally, there is such a thing as having too much <br />work on your schedule and adding Community Recreation responsibilities to <br />the Community Education department may amount to an "overload" of work <br />responsibilities. <br /> <br />One of the items frequently discussed with this issue is duplication of <br />services. I concur that the Community Education and Community <br />Recreation services are similar and some of the employee functions are <br />similar, but I believe that Community Recreation offers different programs <br />than what are offered by Community Education. In this regard we are <br />providing different services to our residents. Having Community (or City) <br />Recreation and Community Education both exist could be compared to <br />having a city police department and a county sheriff department. The city is <br />within the county and the sheriff provides police services for some cities, but <br />Elk River is considered "too big" to have the sheriff provide police services <br />within the community. (The issue with recreation is when is Elk River "big <br />enough" to provide its own city recreation programs?) The same question <br />regarding duplication of services versus each entity providing their own <br />services can be seen when looking at the city and county for such services as <br />building inspections, planning and zoning, code enforcement, street <br />maintenance, etc. We both have staff that perform the same functions. Is <br />this duplication or is this just services being provided at the local level that is <br />closest to the residents? <br /> <br />One of the ideas behind the city managing its own recreation services and <br />programs, besides being more responsive to the needs of our residents, is that <br />it gives us an opportunity to explore the need and structure of a park and <br />recreation department. A city park and recreation director, versus a <br />recreation supervisor, would allow the city to better coordinate park <br />planning, development, and maintenance with recreation programming and <br />