December 16, 2010 – Times-Picayune – Taking the latest step in a push to resurrect the once-proud New Orleans Recreation Department, Mayor Mitch Landrieu on Wednesday introduced the team of community and government leaders that will assume City Hall’s authority over athletic and cultural programs for young people and seniors.
“So many of us have such incredible memories of growing up on a New Orleans Recreation Department playground when our NORD was the best in the country,” said Landrieu, who often notes that he is a product of the program.
“And the ladies and gentlemen standing behind me are committed to making it the best in the country once again,” he said.
Voters green-lighted the overhaul in October when they overwhelmingly approved a City Charter amendment to abolish NORD as a city agency and replace it with the 13-member New Orleans Recreation Development Commission.
Last week, Landrieu and City Council members agreed to nearly triple the dedicated property tax millage for recreation, guaranteeing that the commission will have $8.2 million from the general fund to work with next year.
With an additional $2 million in federal grants, the city has committed a total of $10 million for recreation in 2011, more than double this year’s allocation.
“For the past 25 years, we have not adequately invested in our children,” Landrieu said. “We have to do that in a sustainable way.”
The mayor also announced that his administration is earmarking an additional $1.27 million for recreation programs left over from a legal settlement stemming from a 1987 railcar chemical fire that forced the evacuation of a Gentilly neighborhood.
In addition, Landrieu revealed that the city has forged an agreement with the American Red Cross to oversee year-round swimming lessons and a lifeguard training program for NORD staffers.
Landrieu said the partnership, which marks the first time since Hurricane Katrina that the Red Cross program in New Orleans will be fully financed, will provide about 2,100 residents with an opportunity to learn to swim.
Landrieu said he has drafted businessman Roy Glapion Jr., a key player in the advocacy campaign to win voter approval for the NORD ballot initiative, to serve as chairman.
In his remarks, Glapion, the son of the late City Councilman Roy Glapion, addressed an issue that surfaced before the vote: that “privatizing” NORD could lead to admission and participation fees that poor families would be unable to pay.
“We will bring this community together,” Glapion pledged. “We’re going to level the playing field, and we’re going to give our kids something that we will all be proud of as they move through their lives.”
City Council President Arnie Fielkow, a commission member who has championed recreation reform since he was first elected in 2006, echoed Glapion’s sentiment.
Fielkow, who moved here a decade ago to take an administrative position with the Saints, recalled how his children had the good fortune to participate in the top-notch programs offered at Carrollton Playground in Mid City.
But when activities took place at other parks, Fielkow said he and his family were struck by the stark differences.
“When they saw the level of the playgrounds, the tattered uniforms, the conditions of the fields in some of the other playgrounds … it was wrong,” he said. “We’re going to try to achieve many things, but the first thing that I hope we can accomplish is to make sure we can have an equitable system.”
Among the first duties of the new commission will be to hire an executive director to run the programs.
Supporters of the change are optimistic that the new administrative structure can help spur millions in private donations by giving business leaders and foundations confidence their money will be wisely used.
Plans include formation of a nonprofit foundation to raise private money.
Landrieu has filled 12 of the 13 seats on the recreation commission. The appointee who will represent the fundraising foundation has not yet been named.
NORD, which was created in 1946, was a model program for decades, thriving on a strong local economy and plentiful federal grants. But the oil bust of the mid-1980s and the drying up of federal aid brought hard times.
The agency never recovered and its problems were exacerbated by frequent changes in leadership: at least 12 different directors between 1978 and 2008.
By Frank Donze
