W(Rec)k on the Highway

Last night's BOT meeting was largely dominated by discussions centering around the Recreation Department. Specifically, how to better manage the basketball courts at the Baird and what to do about the upcoming vacancy in the position of Assistant Director of Cultural Affairs.

The basketball courts adjacent to the Baird Center have been the site of several recent controversies - most notably a "pistol whipping" on May 27, 2009 and most recently an enormous impromptu "tournament" on May 21, 2010 which attracted literally hundreds of kids from Newark and surrounding towns and which required a large police response to disperse. As a result, Trustee Gould, Chair of the Recreation Committee, has discussed among the committee the idea of constructing an attractive wrought iron fence around the courts to better control access to the facility. To me, this sounds like an optimal solution which would have a minimal cost impact and would ensure that the courts can be properly controlled when they are "open" and can also be closed when they are unsupervised at times when the Baird Center is closed. By enclosing the courts, players can be directed to enter through the Baird Center and could even be asked to sign-in. If too many people want to access the courts at once, access could be restricted to a safe number of participants. Apparently, this is exactly how the courts used to be operated several years ago before they were re-done and it seemed to work well. I think installing a fence now is an easy solution to prevent a recurrence of the serious problems that have occurred in the past.

The other issue raised and discussed was how to handle the resignation of the Assistant Director of Cultural Affairs. While the resignation of any staff member is always a loss, we also have to view this as an opportunity to better rationalize our staffing and spending on Cultural Affairs. We all agree that cultural affairs is an important part of our lives, however the Village currently spends an enormous amount of money on these activities through the Baird, SOPAC, the Library and the School District. There is now a great opportunity to better consolidate these services, particularly in light of the resignation of the Executive Director of SOPAC and ongoing discussions with Maplewood on "sharing services" with respect to Recreation. The tax burden in our community is still way too high and we have to capitalize on opportunities like this to do everything we can to maintain quality services so residents want to move and stay here, while also reducing that tax burden so residents can afford to stay here.