By Bruce Eggler
October 3, 2010 – Times-Picayune – New Orleans voters agreed Saturday to restructure the city’s much-criticized recreation programs.
A City Charter amendment that will abolish the New Orleans Recreation Department as a City Hall department and replace it with a new agency, the New Orleans Recreation Development Commission, won easy approval from voters.
With all precincts reporting, the amendment passed with 74 percent of the vote.
Both supporters and critics agreed that NORD, once a nationally acclaimed program, has fallen on hard times and is not providing adequate recreational opportunities for the city’s young people. They did not agree on whether the proposed charter amendment was the best way to solve the problem.
Some critics said the reorganization would not address the hub of NORD’s problems: the inadequate budgets that have been largely responsible for closed pools, dilapidated playgrounds, equipment shortages, underpaid coaches and sharp disparities in the quality of programs and facilities between playgrounds in poor and rich neighborhoods.
The amendment creates a new 13-member public-private commission to oversee athletic and cultural programs for young people, seniors and others. The board will hire an executive director to run the programs.
The amendment also allows, though it does not require, the new agency to assume responsibility for maintaining the city’s playgrounds and recreational facilities. The Parks and Parkways Department now is responsible for maintaining them, resulting in divided authority.
City Council President Arnie Fielkow, one of the chief proponents of the charter amendment, originally proposed a companion measure that would have financed the new commission’s activities by increasing an existing Recreation Department millage. He dropped that plan when new Mayor Mitch Landrieu refused to support it, though Landrieu endorsed the charter amendment.
Landrieu has promised to increase NORD’s appropriation in the 2011 budget he will present to the council Oct. 15. Fielkow has said he expects the current $5 million budget will be nearly doubled.
Amendment proponents said the new administrative structure will help spur millions in private donations by giving business leaders and foundations confidence their money will be wisely used. Along with the new management commission, a new nonprofit foundation will be created to raise private money.
The amendment was strongly backed by the New Orleans Business Council and a long list of other business and neighborhood organizations, who said the city has been failing its young people and the new structure was a way to remedy that.
But the New Orleans branch of the NAACP and some community activists warned that “privatizing” NORD could lead to the imposition of admission and participation fees that poor families would be unable to pay. Proponents rejected the term “privatization” and said one of the chief goals of the new arrangement is to “level the playing field” citywide by making sure that all neighborhoods have quality parks and playgrounds. They said there was no danger of prohibitive fees.
NAACP President Danatus King also said the new commission “would not be directly answerable to the public or any elected official” and could become a center of corruption. Proponents replied that the commission would be subject to open meetings laws, would include several public officials and would have to make annual financial accountings to the city.
The charter amendment does not spell out the composition of the new recreation commission, but the City Council passed an ordinance to do that.
The 13-member commission will include the mayor and two other high administration officials, a council member, leaders of the Recovery School District and the Orleans Parish School Board, the chairman of the City Planning Commission and five private citizens, one from each council district, with expertise in specified fields such as sports, business, law and the arts, or as “consumers” of recreation programs, such as a parent or booster club member. The 13th member will represent the fundraising foundation.
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Bruce Eggler can be reached at beggler@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3320.
