Introduction

The City of Brownsville Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) offers quality valued assets and programs to the community through a variety of services that enhance Brownsville’s quality of life, economic value, and sense of community. The PARD owns and maintains over 1,000 acres of parkland, 32 miles of trail, 39 parks, 3 recreation facilities & gymnasiums, 2 public pools, 50 buildings and structures, over 55 athletics fields, and the Catherine Stillman Dog Park. The Department also offers exceptional recreation programming for all ages in the areas of aquatics, athletics, youth enrichment, adults, senior, and special needs programming, and special events; additionally, it has special facilities such as the Brownsville Sports Park, the Brownsville Events Center, and the Brownsville Golf Center.

COMMITMENT TO ACCESSIBLE AND INCLUSIVE PLAY IN THE PARKS We are committed to the development of our children and youth of all abilities and developmental stages through play, providing quality programming that enhances their understanding of the world around them. We believe play and the outdoors gives them opportunities to learn essential skills to flourish in life such as physical & cognitive development, socialization, problem solving, conflict resolution, and so much more.

We encourage our playground manufacturers and vendors to be as creative and affordable as possible to help us achieve these goals when designing new playgrounds for the City of Brownsville.

THE BROWNSVILLE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN provides a foundation for guiding the future growth and development of the city that is consistent with the vision and goals of the community. The plan consists of core elements and smart growth/sustainability elements. The four core elements include land use (including public facilities and parks), downtown, economic development, and mobility/infrastructure. These core elements are supported by six smart growth/sustainability elements: civic, education, equity, healthcare, emergency management, and environment.

• Parks and greenspace play an important role in the land use portion of the plan in terms of preservation of land for conservation efforts, connectivity of the city, and the introduction of open space and parks in developed portions of the city.

• As a smart growth principle, this plan identifies public open spaces and trails as important connections between various areas and land uses within the community because of their positive impact on property values, importance in providing amenities and civic gathering spaces for residents, and their role in creating an identity for neighborhoods.

• Future developments must include a variety of open space types, from small greenspaces that serve individual local neighborhoods, as well as providing larger, regional parks and preservation areas that attract a broad user base from multiple neighborhoods.

• Expanding the existing trail system is important in connecting the city, offering recreational opportunities, and providing infrastructure for alternative modes of transportation.

• The Parks and Recreation Department plays an integral role in embracing the multi-cultural diversity of the city by providing civic gathering spaces, interpretive opportunities, and programming of cultural events and celebrations.

Follows local, state, and federal laws and department/City policies.

Actively participates in executing the City Mission, Vision, and Values.

Seeks community input from the community as a whole, individuals, focus groups, surveys, and advisory boards.

City Leadership and BPARD Leadership weekly meetings.

Budget programming objectives, performance measures that align with department master plan, goals and objectives, and other department plans related to BPARD.

THE PURPOSE OF THE RECREATION PROGRAMMING PLAN is to provide direction for

all programs and services offered by the department.

• How programs and services are developed and selected • The type and scope of the programs; and • Outreach Initiatives • Identify program objectives and program & service determinants • Use of program and service statistics • Community inventory • Trends analysis

PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT PROCESS is required to reduce service variation and assist in training new staff. Use of a process map provides guidance to staff for consistently developing new programs and to diminish the learning curve for new staff and reinforce program development as a core competency. This is created in a flow chart format showing the steps in the process for program development including writing class descriptions, process steps, hiring staff, using contractual employees, and the list of standards.

Additional planning documents are used for program and event planning that has an approval phase, a planning phase, an implementation phase, and an evaluation phase that guides employees through planning and proposing new programs and events an element of our participatory leadership framework and value of employee participation and leadership at all levels.

• Approval phase – answers what season, sites, year, location, number of sessions, age range, fee, session dates, reoccurrence, messaging, description, cost recover based on enrollment, and evaluation criteria. • Planning phase – answers marketing strategies, procurement, volunteer management, budget, protocols, invitations, catering, signage, run of show, value added for guests, security, AV, staffing, hospitality. • Implementation phase – answers participant classification, budget actuals, revenues. • Evaluation phase – answers met objectives, recommend for future, survey method, success for telling our story, challenges, improvements.

The department is committed to the leadership development of staff at all levels, we expect that all team members participate in the decision making to make our department thrive, this includes discussion and education on leadership principles, industry best practices, access to conferences and continuing education, assessing and mitigating risk, creating and evaluating policies, procedures, standards and evaluating for safety, trends, and meeting community needs.