Parks & Recreation March 2020

M A RC H 2020 N R PA .O RG

BUILDING A PATH TOWARD EQUITABLE DESIGN A Community Creation | Engaging Corporate Philanthropy | Parks Enhance Tax Bases

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contentsmarch 2020

IMAGE COURTESY OF STOSS LANDSCAPE URBANISM AND GREAT RIVERS GREENWAY

volume 55 | number 3 | parksandrecreation.org

FEATURES

36 St. Louis: A Path Toward Equitable Design Vitisia Paynich

Social equity remains at the forefront of the Chouteau Greenway project, with community members serving as the standard-bearers of inclusion through urban renewal. In Part 2 of an ongoing series chronicled by Parks & Recreation magazine, we explore how Chouteau Greenway’s new Framework Plan offers a blueprint for social equity and economic prosperity for residents of St. Louis, Missouri.

40 Designing with Community in Mind

Anna Cawrse, PLA, ASLA, and Joshua Brooks, PLA, ASLA

Within East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana sits the neighborhood of North Baton Rouge, a predominantly African American community that has long seen less investment than other areas within the parish. Discover how the 6

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Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge and Sasaki design firm are reversing this trend and revitalizing the neighborhood through the reimagining of Greenwood Park and the Baton Rouge Zoo.

44 Making Corporate Partnerships Work Maura Lout

Corporate partnerships can bring a lot to the table for park managers, including financial resources, marketing and media leverage, brand enhancement and new users or supporters. But, these partnerships also can be difficult to navigate. Learn directly from park professionals how to build and leverage successful corporate partnerships for your park agency.

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contents march

columns

departments

10 Perspectives

14 We Are Parks and Recreation

12 Editor’s Letter

Keeping the Hearth of Parks and Recreation Glowing Through Mentorship 14 Directors School — Definitely Worth It 15 Remembering Harry ‘Hal’ G. Haskell Jr. 16 Member Benefit: Summer Camp Safety Solutions 17

18 Research The New NRPA Evaluation Resource Hub Kevin Brady

19 Park Pulse Parks and Recreation: A Powerful Economic Driver in Communities Nationwide

48 Operations The 10th NRPA Parks Build Community Project Begins Suzanne Nathan

A Vision for Equity in Park Design Kristine Stratton

Putting People into Park Design Gina Mullins-Cohen

20 Finance for the Field Designing Parks to Enhance a Community’s Tax Base John L. Crompton, Ph.D.

22 Advocacy Understanding Congress’ Appropriations Process Kyle Simpson

24 Health & Wellness Designing Quality Play Spaces Jennifer Stromberg

26 Conservation Transforming Urban Infrastructure in Lakeland, Florida Anna Cawrse, PLA, ASLA

50 Products 51 Park Essentials 55 Advertiser Index 56 Park Bench Granny’s Got Game!

Lindsay Collins

Cover image: Image Courtesy of Stoss Landscape Urbanism and Great Rivers Greenway

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28 Social Equity Who Can Access the Greenway?

Jeongseup Lee and Jamie Rae Walker

30 Law Review City Lifeguard Videotaped Women in Staff Changing Room James C. Kozlowski, J.D., Ph.D.

Page 26

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P E R S P E C T I V E S A M E S S A G E F R O M N R P A’ S L E A D E R S

A Vision for Equity in Park Design “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou Every day, park professionals live and breathe those sentiments for the betterment of their cities and for every constituent they serve. They know that we must always work to improve our parks, our programs and the engagement of our community members, incorporating best and next practices to ensure our solutions are responsive to the changing needs of our communities. Access to well-planned parks and natural green spaces brings community members together — no matter their race, gender, religion or income level. And, thoughtful park and program design supports healthier lifestyles and a host of other benefits for patrons of all ages.

At NRPA, we believe that “everyone deserves a great park,” especially one that truly embodies equitable design. In November 2019, as part of NRPA’s Great Urban Parks Campaign, I had the honor of attending and speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for Kathryn Johnston Memorial Park in Atlanta, Georgia. This longanticipated project wouldn’t have been possible without extensive input and guidance from residents and grassroots organizations. Today, the former vacant lot not only serves as a welcoming outdoor gathering place for Atlanta residents, but also is helping to alleviate flooding of neighboring homes through its green infrastructure features. Designed and constructed to address both community member concerns and hopes, it represents one of thousands of park projects throughout the United States that puts social equity front and center.

This month’s issue of Parks & Recreation magazine takes a closer look at park design and what different park agencies and nonprofits throughout the country are doing to move the needle forward in equitable park design. One such example is the article, “Designing with Community in Mind” on page 40, in which the architects share their perspectives on how the recent 10 Parks & Recreation

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redesign of Louisiana’s Greenwood Park and the Baton Rouge Zoo has flipped the script on the conventional master planning process. As practitioners, they fostered extensive community engagement, stating that “the planning and design teams took a purposefully broad and blank-slate approach to the engagement process, focusing on education and listening before offering any solutions.”

NRPA remains committed to raising awareness about the importance of equitable design in parks and providing the tools and resources to help our members achieve community-centered park planning objectives.

To support this, I highly recommend reviewing our new resource guide, titled “System-wide Park Master Plans” (nrpa.org/ParkMasterPlanning). The resource provides four key tips in creating a system-wide park master plan, namely: internal assessment; community engagement; resource and data collection; and development of an implementation plan. It also includes helpful case studies for each of those four phases to give readers practical examples.

The most important step to achieving equitable, and therefore effective, park design is community engagement. After all, you cannot make truly strategic planning decisions if you don’t fully understand your community’s needs and engage in dialogue to translate those needs into solutions that will meet them. Recently, NRPA launched our Community Needs Assessment Resource (nrpa.org/CommunityNeedsAssessments), a four-step guide that members can use to gauge the public’s perception of their park agency’s service offerings and identify gaps. These two resources — System-wide Park Master Plans and Community Needs Assessment Resource — can serve as useful complements to one another.

Every day you dedicate your time to finding and providing the best solutions for your communities. NRPA stands with you, supplying the tools and resources to help make that happen.

KRISTINE STR AT TON President and CEO

2377 Belmont Ridge Rd. | Ashburn, VA 20148 2 703.858.0784 | nrpa.org

NRPA’S MISSION: To advance parks, recreation and environmental conservation efforts that enhance the quality of life for all people.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Chair of the Board of Directors Jack Kardys J. Kardys Strategies Miami, Florida

Joanna Lombard University of Miami School of Architecture; Miller School of Medicine Department of Public Health Sciences Miami, Florida

Chair-Elect Michael P. Kelly Chicago Park District Chicago, Illinois Treasurer Jesús Aguirre, CPRE

Carolyn McKnight-Fredd, CPRP

Seattle Parks and Recreation Seattle, Washington

Herman Parker

Previously with BREC Dallas, Texas

Joshua Medeiros, Ed.D., CPRP, AFO City of Bristol Parks & Recreation Bristol, Connecticut

Secretary Carolyn McKnight-Fredd, CPRP

Formerly of City of San Diego, California, Parks and Recreation Department San Diego, California

Previously with BREC Dallas, Texas

Ian Proud

President and CEO Kristine Stratton, Ex Officio National Recreation and Park Association Ashburn, Virginia

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Michael Abbaté, FASLA, LEED AP Abbaté Designs Portland, Oregon

Jesús Aguirre, CPRE Seattle Parks and Recreation Seattle, Washington

Hayden Brooks American Realty Corporation Austin, Texas

Kong Chang City of Saint Paul Parks and Recreation Saint Paul, Minnesota

Kevin Coyle, J.D.

Atlanta Beltline, Inc. Atlanta, Georgia

Xavier D. Urrutia Alamo Colleges District San Antonio, Texas

Greg A. Weitzel, M.S., CPRP City of Las Vegas Parks and Recreation Las Vegas, Nevada

Philip Wu, M.D. Formerly of Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region Portland, Oregon

LIFE TRUSTEES Beverly D. Chrisman Lexington, South Carolina

Jose Felix Diaz

James H. Evans

Ballard Partners Miami, Florida

New York, New York

Victor Dover

Sugar Hill, New Hampshire

Dover, Kohl & Partners Town Planning Miami, Florida

Earl T. Groves

Richard Gulley

Charles E. Hartsoe, Ph.D.

J. Kardys Strategies Miami, Florida

Fort Mill, South Carolina

Rosemary Hall Evans

Gastonia, North Carolina Richmond, Virginia

Harry G. Haskell, Jr. Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania

Kathryn A. Porter

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EDITOR’S LET TER

Putting People into Park Design Public parks serve as the ultimate equalizer by welcoming people — regardless of culture, race, age, abilities or income level — to recreate, experience and learn. This is a belief that park professionals strive toward every day. To accomplish this, it is essential to include this principle from the first imagining of a park through its design, creation, implementation and subsequent management. Over and over, we see that the key to equitable and inclusionary practices is the involvement of diverse individuals and groups from the start, to consider their feedback and act upon their ideas. In this issue of Parks & Recreation magazine, we look at ways to engage various groups and partners throughout the park design process to ensure our equity values are realized.

Our cover story this month is Part 2 of an ongoing series on the Chouteau Greenway. While Part 1 (nrpa.org/StLouisFuture) focused on the project’s initial public relations strategy and public outreach efforts, the story in this issue by author Vitisia Paynich, titled “St. Louis: A Path Toward Equitable Design,” beginning on page 36, discusses how the greenway’s new Framework Plan acts as a blueprint for social equity and economic prosperity for residents all across the city of St. Louis, Missouri.

In the North Baton Rouge neighborhood of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, is Greenwood Park, home to the Baton Rouge Zoo, a culturally significant amenity that was at risk of being relocated. In the feature story, titled “Designing with Community in Mind,” contributors Anna Cawrse and Joshua Brooks describe how the Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge and Sasaki, a design firm, are addressing and reversing a decades-long pattern of disinvestment in this community through the reimaging of Greenwood Park and the Baton Rouge Zoo. Throughout the park design and maintenance process, many park agencies turn to publicprivate partnerships, conservancies and advocacy groups for funding assistance. However, there is another funding source to be tapped — one that, sometimes, is a challenge to navigate for park professionals. In the feature, titled “Making Corporate Partnerships Work,” on page 44, author Maura Lout explains how park agencies can engage corporate-sector partners for financial, marketing and media support to increase corporate social investment and meet the strategic, long-term goals of both parties. If this subject piques your interest, be sure to read the upcoming August 2020 issue of Parks & Recreation magazine, which will feature an article from contributor Gordon Feller, founder of Meeting of the Minds (meetingoftheminds.org), that expands on this topic.

I’d also like to note that we have retracted an article, titled “Building Water Confidence,” that was printed in the January 2020 issue, from the Parks & Recreation website and ezine version of the publication. Safety is always the primary concern for NRPA and for dedicated park professionals everywhere. The program featured was highly specialized, requiring strict supervision. Prudent feedback voiced by members alerted us to potential safety risks to the general public. We thank those who are diligent about promoting awareness of best safety practices.

GINA MULLINS-COHEN Vice President of Communications and Chief Marketing Officer

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PRESIDENT AND CEO Kristine Stratton VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS AND CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER Gina Mullins-Cohen gcohen@nrpa.org ASSOCIATE EDITOR Lindsay Collins lcollins@nrpa.org EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTOR Suzanne Nathan snathan@nrpa.org PUBLICATION DESIGN Kim Mabon/Creative By Design CreativeByDesign.net SENIOR SALES MANAGER EASTERN REGION AND EUROPE Kip Ongstad 703.858.2174 kongstad@nrpa.org SENIOR SALES MANAGER WESTERN REGION AND ASIA Michelle Dellner 949.248.1057 mdellner@nrpa.org SALES COORDINATOR Meghan Fredriksen 703.858.2190 mfredriksen@nrpa.org PHOTOGRAPHY Dreamstime.com or NRPA (unless otherwise noted) MAGAZINE ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS Anthony-Paul Diaz, Chair Michael Abbaté, FASLA Neelay Bhatt Ryan Eaker Beau Fieldsend Robert García Kathleen Gibi Paul Gilbert, CPRP Tim Herd, CPRE Brian Johnson, CPSI Denise Johnson-Caldwell Roslyn Johnson, CPRP Michele Lemons Sam Mendelsohn Maria Nardi Lisa Paradis, CPRP Paula Sliefert Shonnda Smith, CPRP, AFO Anne-Marie Spencer Stephen Springs

Explore Open Space FEATURED PODCAST:

FEATURED BLOG POST:

Turning Impossible Situations Into Opportunities

Challenges Faced by Small Park Districts

“She took a sip and put her teacup down and went, ‘OK, tell everybody. I want everyone to know. I don’t want anyone to be afraid; I want everyone to talk about this.

We all have to come together because we’re all in this together.’”

What started as a way for Jessica Patterson, community outreach coordinator for Groton, Connecticut, Parks and Recreation, to cope with her mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s has turned into multiple programs and cross-department partnerships that are enriching an entire community and making it safer. To hear more of Patterson’s story, tune into episode 058 of Open Space Radio, “Turning Impossible Situations into Opportunities,” at nrpa.org/ OpenSpaceOpportunities.

“Small communities are typically very appreciative of the efforts of their park personnel, which, in turn, makes park and recreation staff feel that they are making a difference as they get to know the families and participants they serve. Navigating the challenges of a small park district is well worth it when staff is able to experience the impact they make on their communities.”

The challenges faced by park and recreation professionals in small, rural communities are unique. If you are interested in learning more about what it takes to work in a small park district (and why it’s worth it!), take a look at the blog post, “Challenges Faced by Small Park Districts,” from contributor Michael McCann, MS, executive director of Sandwich Park District in Illinois, at nrpa.org/SmallParkDistrictChallenges.

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PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N .O R G | M A R C H 2 02 0 |

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WE ARE PARKS & RECREATION Keeping the Hearth of Parks and Recreation Glowing Through Mentorship Relationships sustain connection, support and professional development

By Jennifer Fulcher

W

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF JAN PETERSON HINCAPIE

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Parks & Recreation

“Jan Peterson Hincapie has been such an incredible impact in my life. I mean this with every ounce of my being,” Aumiller says. The young professional, who is recreation supervisor for the City of Two Rivers Parks and Recreation Department in Wisconsin, had been dealing with some struggles in her career that caused her to have some doubts about her skills.

But that all changed when she connected with Hincapie. “[Hincapie] has years of knowledge, stories, advice, laughs and memories,” Aumiller says. “The most meaningful thing I’ve learned from her is that I can get through anything that comes my way.” The support, advice and encouragement Aumiller received has taught her to believe in herself and to “do good” in her career.

“She has become more than just a mentor…she has become an invaluable friend whom I will cherish for the rest of my life,” Aumiller notes. “I can only hope that when the opportunity presents itself, I can take the things I have learned from this woman…and pay it forward in our field.”

Hincapie, a semi-retired professional with 37 years of park and recreation experience, works part time as director of Recreation Services for the Wood Dale Park District in Illinois.

“I’ve had many people who helped me through the years and now it is my turn to give back,” she says.

Even though Hincapie lives in Illinois and Aumiller lives in Wisconsin, their mentor-mentee relationship remains strong. They stay connected through social media, text message, emails and phone calls. They discuss ideas and potential problems, provide feedback about presentations “or just [talk] about anything,” Hincapie says.

“Long distance relationships really can work…at least for mentoring.”

“Mentoring is necessary to keep our field rich, energized and connected,” Hincapie asserts. This Hincapie values her role as a mentor to others in the field of parks and recreation.

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF EMMA AUMILLER

hen Emma Aumiller started up her computer on Oct. 28 and navigated to the Women in Parks in Recreation Facebook group webpage, she only hoped to find someone else attending the Wisconsin Park and Recreation Association conference.

However, she ended up discovering something much more valuable: a mentor.

Aumiller poses at the welcome sign to Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

becomes increasingly important as park and recreation professionals retire. The connection helps retirees stay in touch with the field and energized to stay involved.

“Over the years, I have seen individuals whom I have mentored become top leaders in their organizations,” Hincapie says. “This gives me a great sense of pride and happiness to think I might have helped in some small way.”

Hincapie encourages other “seasoned professionals” to take time and mentor a student or young professional and “pass the torch” to those who follow.

Learn more about NRPA’s efforts to build effective and evidence-based mentorship programs through the Mentoring in Parks and Recreation initiative at nrpa.org/Mentoring.

Jennifer Fulcher is NRPA’s Communications Manager (jnguyen@nrpa.org).

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF KATIE GROKE

Directors School — Definitely Worth It

By Katie Groke, MPA, CPRP

A

re you grappling with whether you should spend your hardearned money (or the limited training dollars in your budget) on attending NRPA’s Directors School in beautiful Oak Brook, Illinois? As a 2019 NRPA Directors School graduate, my advice to you is: yes, you should go!

Situated in a suburb outside of Chicago, Oak Brook is home to the former McDonald’s training facility, which is now where Directors School takes place. Affectionately known to former Directors School attendees as Hamburger University, the Hyatt Lodge is a beautiful place to learn all about the key subjects covered during your week stay. The subjects covered at Directors School include leadership development, strategy, budget and finance, directors’ role in the political environment and response to changing communities. The best leaders and experts in the industry teach and guide students through varied classes, lectures and case studies. There are fun opportunities to work together and discuss current issues facing our industry during mealtime roundtables, and students are offered plenty of time

to ask questions and challenge the instructors during sessions. Directors School gives you the space and time needed to embrace the next steps of your park and recreation journey and to contemplate how to implement your new knowledge in the most effective way for your agency.

Some of the best parts of Directors School are the connections you make and people you meet from all over the country. At the start of the program you are assigned to a team that stays together as a unit throughout the two years of the program, allowing you to build strong bonds throughout your time at Directors School. These friendships extend outside of the program and provide a network outside of Directors School that allow you to ask insightful questions, receive recommendations for problem-solving

and gain general support through friends. Over the course of the week you are together at Directors School, you dive deep into real issues that you experienced and need help solving. You also are given ample time to share success stories and boast about the accomplishments of your work and agency that may help others. What’s more, you are able to brainstorm with the best and brightest in our trade, and form friendships that are long-lasting. My group still communicates and reaches out to each other to seek support on varying issues. They are some of the first people I turn to when I get in a pickle and need help.

We came, we learned, we danced, we laughed, we conquered! Good luck to the next class of Directors School. Enjoy every minute of one of the most unique experiences of your life.

To learn more about Directors School, visit nrpa.org/Directors.

Katie Groke, MPA, CPRP, is the Marketing and Communications Director for the Apex Park and Recreation District (katieg@apexprd.org, @grokey).

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W E A R E P A R K S & R E C R E AT I O N

Remembering Harry ‘Hal’ G. Haskell Jr. Dedicated park and recreation professional passes away on January 16, 2020, at age of 98

By Lindsay Collins

I

“

believe that recreation and saving the environment have everything to do with people’s leisure time and make an enormous difference.” These words from Harry “Hal” G. Haskell Jr. (tinyurl.com/sjxg4nk), illustrate his passion for and commitment to the field of parks and recreation. A former U.S. Congressman and mayor of Wilmington, Delaware, Haskell also served more than 20 years on the NRPA Board of Trustees, including as board chair from 1980 to 1985, and was inducted as an NRPA life trustee in 1993. These career achievements are among the numerous contributions Haskell has made throughout his life to his community and his country.

From 1952 to 1984, Haskell was selected as a delegate to the Republican National Convention every four years, excluding 1957 to 1959, during which he served as Delaware’s sole Congressman. During the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Haskell served in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, leading the agency’s Interdepartmental Council and working with the heads of Public Health Services, Social Security, Education and the Food and Drug Administration to address issues, such as creating vocational rehabilitation programs and revising Social Security. During his tenure as Congressman, Haskell’s notable achievements

include the enactment of the United States’ student loan program, the enactment of the National Defense Education Act and the establishment of an air traffic control system.

In 1968, he was elected mayor of Wilmington as a Republican in a predominately Democratcontrolled city during a period of distress following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “It was right after the race riots in the ’60s, and he was very instrumental in removing the National Guard from the city after the riots took place,” says Joseph O’Neill, former NRPA board member and colleague of Haskell.

“He made a special effort with the parks and recreation department and the recreation programs in the city to help bring some reconciliation to the people. Also, the city didn’t have much money at that time, so he led an effort for the historical city parks to be merged to the county parks. The county was better funded at the time and better able to take care of these Haskell, pictured center top row, was the impetus behind the the Life. Be in it! program in the United States. Photo from February 1980 issue of Parks & Recreation magazine.

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wonderful parks.” He proceeded to serve one term from 1969 to 1972 and was the last Republican to be elected mayor of Wilmington to date.

Other notable achievements of Haskell’s life and career include the founding of an Episcopal youth camp in Delaware; consultant to Nelson Rockefeller, President Eisenhower’s special assistant for Foreign Affairs; leadership of efforts to protect Brandywine Creek from environmental abuse and degradation; establishment of the Delaware Futures program to help at-risk youth develop skills to expand opportunities and achieve a college education; the creation of Action Task Forces in Wilmington neighborhoods to learn from citizens about the types of city programs and services they wanted; the founding of Dynamy, a nonprofit experiential educational organization to support young people to discover their life purpose through Outward Bound and internships; implementation of the Life. Be in it! program in the United States; recipient of honorary degrees from Fisk University and Hobart College.

Haskell once stated that “involvement in recreation and leisure are essential to personal, mental and physical health, yielding a full and rewarding life.” Throughout his life and career, he was dedicated to this belief and demonstrated such through his many contributions to the field of parks and recreation and beyond.

Lindsay Collins is the Associate Editor for Parks & Recreation magazine (lcollins@nrpa.org).

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RESEARCH The New NRPA Evaluation Resource Hub

By Kevin Brady

A

re you trying to determine whether your programming is effective but are unsure of how to do so? Are you tired of administering surveys to your community and not being sure what to do with their feedback? NRPA’s new Evaluation Resource Hub provides park and recreation professionals with resources to support evaluation efforts at their agencies. The hub prioritizes easy-to-implement strategies and tactics that you can apply quickly and effortlessly in your community.

What’s in the Evaluation Resource Hub? The hub will help you collect a wide variety of crucial data, whether you are launching a community needs assessment, assessing the use of your parks or embarking on evaluation and measurement for the very first time. Ultimately, it is important that you not only collect good data, but that you are also using it to drive performance improvement. The hub will help you do just that.

Highlights of the Evaluation Resource Hub include:

Community Surveying • The Customer Feedback Survey resource (nrpa.org/SurveysCustomer) – This resource is a high-level orientation for building and administering quality surveys that will generate a high-response rate from your community.

• Community Needs Assessments (nrpa.org/CommunityNeeds Assessments) – These are similar to customer feedback surveys, but they comprise extra layers of questions to assess the needs and priorities of your community. A priority of needs assessments is to receive feedback from your entire community — this guide will help you gain feedback from underinvested populations and those who have little or no engagement with your agency.

Data Collection Beyond Surveying • Though the framework focuses on green infrastructure in parks, the downloadable tools and resources apply to everything from playground renovations and other park projects to assessing the health and social results of your recreation classes. Learn how to collect data

to evaluate your agency’s full impact on your community with park observations, citizen science events and economic analysis.

Agency Performance Measurement • Park Check Risk Assessment (nrpa. org/Park-Check) – It is vital to measure the sustainability of your agency’s funding to ensure that you can fully deliver on your mission.

This quality risk assessment tool analyzes your agency using five key principles and highlights resources that will guide your agency to a more sustainable future.

What’s to Come The NRPA research team will be developing additional resources for the hub, including: • A downloadable survey question bank covering a wide array of topics • Performance Measurement 101, which will provide tools and techniques for establishing a continuous improvement culture and process inside your agency • Logic Models 101, which provide a high-level overview of how to use logic models to clarify your agency’s desired results and how you intend to achieve them Evaluation can be a daunting task due to limited time, resources and capacity. The Evaluation Resource Hub will help you look inside and outside your organization to strengthen the work of you and your colleagues to serve your communities better.

Kevin Brady is Senior Evaluation Manager at NRPA (kbrady@nrpa.org).

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Parks & Recreation

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NRPA PARK PULSE

Parks and Recreation: A Powerful Economic Driver in Communities Nationwide

94%

of U.S. adults want their local government to make infrastructure investments that promote economic activity in their community.

3/4 of survey respondents say it is very or extremely important to invest in the following infrastructure elements:

Schools

Trails

Park Improvements

Transportation

Park and recreation professionals and their agencies spark economic activity in a variety of ways, including direct and indirect employment, on-site transactions, increased property values, increased physical activity, and effective land management methods and green infrastructure investments. Learn more at nrpa.org/ParkEconReport.

Each month, through a poll of 1,000 U.S. residents focused on park and recreation issues, NRPA Park Pulse helps tell the park and recreation story. Questions span from the serious to the more lighthearted. The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com).

Visit nrpa.org/ParkPulse for more information.

FINANCE FOR THE FIELD Designing Parks to Enhance a Community’s Tax Base

By John L. Crompton, Ph.D.

I

t has long been recognized that many people will pay a premium to live close to a park. Indeed, the pioneering urban parks in the mid-1800s were funded by cities that acquired land for a park and retained onethird to one-quarter of the land to sell or lease after the park was completed to pay its capital costs. These early parks were viewed as economically beneficial features that enhanced profits from real estate developments.

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Unfortunately, in contemporary times, elected officials rarely recognize the financial merit of parks.

Their social merits may be accepted, but conventional belief states that parks are a costly investment from which a community receives no measurable financial return.

However, this perspective overlooks the enhanced property taxes stemming from increased increments of value at properties located close to parks. The principle is illustrated by the hypothetical 50acre park situated in a suburban community shown in Figure 1.

It is a natural, resource-oriented park with some appealing topography and vegetation. The cost of acquiring and developing it (fencing, trails, supplementary planting, landscaping, picnic shelters, etc.) is $50,000 an acre, so the total capital cost is $2.5 million. The annual debt payments for a 25-year general obligation bond on $2.5 million at 5 percent are approximately $185,000.

In Figure 2, annual income streams that can be attributed to the park and could service the bond debt are developed based on two different scenarios. Scenario A in Figure 2 shows the annual incremental property taxes in the three zones from the premiums attributable to the park amount to $189,500. This is sufficient to pay the $185,000 annual bond debt repayment.

Scenario B results in annual property tax increments in the

The edge effect suggests that narrower lots fronting on to a park create higher aggregate premiums, because more homes benefit from being adjacent to the park.

Proximate Premiums Facilitate Parks, Not Justify Them Incremental premiums should be part of the debate when considering the cost of amenities. When evaluating optimum land use, the sequence of events should be: • The decision that a projected park has social merit • The existence of political will to pursue it • The exploration of a project’s potential to enhance the tax base, when the central focus shifts to financing it Stay tuned for the April issue of Parks & Recreation, to read more about the financial benefits that parks provide. three zones of $94,500. Clearly, changes in any of the four assumptions listed in the scenarios of Figure 2 will lead to different outcomes. Readers are invited to insert numbers into these assumptions that best reflect the context with which they are concerned.

The alternative scenarios in Figure 2 suggest the proximate premium may be less effective in covering costs in suburban (Scenario B) than in urban (Scenario A) areas. In a garden-style suburban neighborhood, a park would provide continuity and reinforce the image of the neighborhood, rather than provide a contrast to its surroundings. However, there will be fewer homes benefiting from proximity to the amenity than in urban areas with denser housing patterns. Thus, if a suburban park is to deliver equivalent tax revenues, either the premium paid by each home must be substantially higher relative to urban contexts, or the cost of land must decrease disproportionably relative to the number of houses around the park.

The Edge Effect A determining factor of the magnitude of a park’s impact on the property tax base is the extent of the park’s perimeter or edge. This is demonstrated in Figure 3, which suggests the property premium emanating from six 8.33-acre parks, with dimensions of 400 by 100 yards (giving an aggregate perimeter of 1,000 yards per park) and non-overlapping impact zones, will be substantially greater in aggregate than the premium generated by the 1,210 by 200 yards (2,820-yard perimeter) 50-acre park.

John L. Crompton, Ph.D., is a University Distinguished Professor, Regents Professor and Presidential Professor for Teaching Excellence in the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Sciences at Texas A&M University and an elected Councilmember for the City of College Station (jcrompton@tamu.edu).

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PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N .O R G | M A R C H 2 02 0 |

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ADVOCACY

Understanding Congress’ Appropriations Process

By Kyle Simpson

T

he Congressional appropriations process certainly seems overwhelming, but it doesn’t need to be. The NRPA public policy team is here to help ensure that you are up-to-date on the appropriations process and have the tools you need to get involved and be successful in influencing the process.

Each year, Congress must pass appropriations bills that lay out how much money each federal agency — and in a lot of cases, each program — can spend for the upcoming fiscal year. These bills must be passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed by the president. The appropriations process follows a set timeline, but sometimes these deadlines slip. Here’s a breakdown of the appropriations process timeline in a typical year.

Winter In early February, the president of the United States must submit a budget to Congress. This is the

administration’s suggestion as to how much each agency and program should receive from Congress.

While this shows the administration’s priorities, Congress almost always ignores large portions of the president’s suggested budget. This is where the public gets to first weigh in on the appropriations process by speaking about the importance of the programs they care about.

Spring During Spring, Congressional appropriators (members of Congress who sit on the House and Senate Appropriations Committees) and their staff begin the process of writ-

ing the appropriations bills. They consider the president’s budget requests and the priorities of the party that controls that chamber, and they begin assigning funding levels to agencies and their programs. This is an important time to contact your member of Congress.

NRPA’s public policy team can provide talking points and sample letters that you can send to your member of Congress to ask them to support important P&R funding.

In May and June, Congress publicly debates and begins to vote on its appropriations bills. There are 12 bills that each chamber is supposed to pass each year.

Summer By summer, Congress continues to work to pass its appropriations bills and find agreement with the other chamber. In August, Congress takes a break. This is a great time to invite your members of Congress to one of your events to show them the importance of funding for parks and recreation.

Fall While the Office of Management and Budget works on the next year’s funding almost year-round, the process really picks up in the fall as the administration begins preparing the details of the president’s budget.

September 30 is the end of the curThis chart shows the amount of LWCF State Assistance funding that each state has received since 2012.

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rent fiscal year. By midnight on September 30, Congress needs to either agree to identical appropriations bills on each side and have them signed by the president or pass a continuing resolution (CR). These CRs are the legislative equivalent of “kicking the can down the road.” They provide level funding for a short period of time while Congress attempts to finish its appropriations work. In recent years, Congress has relied on a CR in almost every instance, and I anticipate this year will be no exception.

During October, November and December (and sometimes, January and February of the next year), Congress works to come to an agreement, and the president — hopefully — signs the appropriations bills. While the intention is to pass all 12 bills individually, members of Congress usually bend on this at this point in the fiscal year. The 12 bills are usually packaged in larger bills that are, sometimes, called an omnibus (Latin for “for all”). If these bills are passed before the fiscal year, or one of the CRs expires, the government continues running. Otherwise, a government shutdown occurs.

The Effect on Parks and Rec So, what is in these appropriations bills for park and recreation professionals? The Land and Water Conservation Fund, some transportation funding, Community Development Block Grants, 21st Century Community Learning Centers and NRPA’s work on arthritis prevention and mentoring are all funded fully or in part through the appropriations process. NRPA has been successful in growing and protecting these funding streams, but not without your help.

Is your head spinning yet? Fear

not. NRPA will update you on the appropriations process via our advocacy action center at nrpa.org/ Advocacy. From there, you can write your members of Congress

and explain to them the importance of parks and recreation.

Kyle Simpson is NRPA’s Senior Government Affairs Manager (ksimpson@nrpa.org).

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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Designing Quality Play Spaces How active play can lead to positive health outcomes for children

By Jennifer Stromberg

D

espite the increasing number of studies documenting the importance of play, many questions exist on how to design quality play spaces that can help communities in their quest to increase physical activity in youth. As sedentary behavior continues to rise, the urgency increases to provide outlets for children that promote physical fitness.

Research also has shown that people living in underinvested communities disproportionately experience poor outcomes, such as health disparities, crime and violence, economic opportunity and social cohesion. Park spaces can positively impact these outcomes.

Access to Play More than 100 million people in the United States do not have a park or natural area within a 10-minute walk

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF CITY OF IOWA PARKS AND RECREATION DEPARTMENT

Play is a critical part of childhood development and park spaces are an essential component of that growth.

Some benefits of play that influence development include: (1) boosting positive attitudes toward cultural diversity and reducing feelings of isolation, (2) providing intense skill learning with one hour of daily vigorous play, such as running and playing tag, and (3) optimizing vision for kids who play outside compared to those who play inside.

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of their home. Many of those who do find that those parks or natural areas are in need of maintenance and updating.

So how can agencies ensure they are creating quality play spaces?

Many communities build parks based on what they think the neighborhood wants rather than involve them as key decision-makers in the park design and development process. This can lead to unintended consequences, such as the park not fulfilling community expectations or providing the health, social and mental benefits it was tasked to deliver.

There are four key steps to consider when designing a quality play space: Planning and site selection – Research has shown that people who live within a 10-minute walk of a park are most positively impacted by parks’ health, environmental and economic benefits.

Finding a site that maximizes the number of community members who live within this distance can help to close gaps in access. It is also important to prioritize sites in communities that have had a historical lack of investment and experience poor environmental, health and/or economic outcomes.

Connections and accessibility are also important considerations.

The Safe Routes to Parks (nrpa. org/Safe-Routes-To-Parks) guide provides information to implement

1

Children in Iowa City, Iowa explore the play features at Riverfront Crossings Park.

Riverfront Crossings Park: A Case Study environmental, policy and program strategies that create safe and equitable access to parks for all people.

Information gathering and community input – From the beginning of the process, ensure you have input and trust from the community to build the best park possible.

NRPA has developed a Community Engagement Resource Guide (nrpa.org/CommunityEngagement Guide) to provide park and recreation professionals with a roadmap to implement equitable and inclusive community engagement strategies around the planning, design, construction, maintenance and activation of park projects and park plans. Equitable and inclusive community engagement is fundamental to establishing quality parks and play spaces that meet the

2

needs of all constituents.

Park design – Quality spaces not only include creative and playful items, but also are designed to be sustainable, resilient and easy to maintain. Design should incorporate environmentally responsible elements, such as green stormwater infrastructure and pollinator gardens, to ensure the area’s long-term viability.

Quality play areas also include inclusive features, such as zip tracks, sensory stations and music sets, allowing community members of all abilities to fully participate in activities.

Construction, park opening and activation – Host volunteer events, such as landscaping, painting and building, to help with phases of the project. Supply the community with needed tools to complete on-

3

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In Iowa City, Iowa, Riverfront Crossings Park is located at the site of the city’s decommissioned North Wastewater Treatment Plant, where several large floods along the Iowa River created extensive damage to the surrounding properties. In 2008, the city secured funding to decommission the plant and convert the area into a new riverfront park.

As the plans for the park developed, public input was gathered from the surrounding community. The public was vocal about the need to connect people to the restored land and natural habitat as well as a desire for spaces that promoted community gathering and engagement. By implementing the key design steps throughout the process, the needs of the community have been met and the park has become a centerpiece for regenerating the surrounding neighborhood.

going maintenance of the space to make it their own. Once the space is complete, continue to host events and activate the space.

Jennifer Stromberg is a Program Manager at NRPA (jstromberg@nrpa.org).

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Bonnet Springs Park is on schedule to open in 2021.

Transforming Urban Infrastructure in Lakeland, Florida

By Anna Cawrse, PLA, ASLA

P

ristine green spaces in cities are frequently hard to come by, requiring park agencies and designers to think creatively about future parks and conservation. Oftentimes, future park sites present environmental and social challenges that seem daunting to tackle.

Perhaps because complex environmental restoration often is needed for parkland, these projects aren’t viewed as economic drivers. Many park sites also cause designers and park agencies to confront an uncomfortable part of urban history: many parks only have been made accessible to more privileged communities and, sometimes, act as a tool to segregate communities.

However, each of these complex scenarios presents an opportunity: how can designers work with cities and communities to conserve and restore the environment, ecologically, economically and socially?

The following project from Sasaki looks at how to use conservation as a main driver of form and function, all while achieving the goals of: restoring the environment, reestablishing habitat and, ultimately, connecting people to nature.

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Bonnet Springs Park and Lakeland Railyard Between 1880 and the early 1950s, the site of the future 180acre Bonnet Springs Park served as one of the most important railroad centers in Florida. The Lakeland Railyard moved, stored

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and repaired the coal-powered locomotives that fueled the region’s economy. Fast-forward 60 years to today, and you may be surprised by the next iteration of this derelict brownfield site: a public park.

Bonnet Springs Park’s visionary mission and technical challenge is to reverse the impacts of the former operations and create a site where the community can escape, engage and explore Central Florida’s incredible ecosystem.

The first major challenge to overcome was removing the arsenic from the 60-acre railyard site.

Working closely with state environmental officials and environmental engineers, Sasaki developed a remediation strategy that used the 350,000 cubic yards of

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF SASAKI

CONSERVATION

MORE POWER FOR YOUR PARK Remediation is currently underway at Bonnet Springs Park, with the North Hill reaching a height of 35 feet.

contaminated soil to create sculpted landforms on the flat plateau. These capped and safe landforms serve as a reminder of the site’s past and showcase how creative design can overcome years of degradation.

Stormwater Management Design Land remediation, however, is just one facet of the ecologicalimprovement strategy. The two major water systems in the future park, Lake Bonnet and Bonnet Springs Valley, face staggering environmental challenges. Lake Bonnet is the most polluted lake in the city, and Bonnet Springs Valley, which drains into Lake Bonnet, is experiencing an accelerated rate of erosion along its banks. This erosion is caused by a 66-inch diameter culvert near the headwaters that releases stormwater runoff from a 300-acre watershed. The Bonnet Springs Park board decided to implement a stormwater-management design that will help restore Bonnet Springs Valley and prevent further pollution of Lake Bonnet.

First, the design separates the commingled stormwater runoff from the clean water coming from the natural sand seep spring. The contaminated water then moves through a series of constructed wetlands to remove pollutants before being released into the lake. Not only do these new wetlands serve an important hydrological function, but they provide a new amenity within the park to teach visitors the importance of a working landscape.

Through careful coordination of soil remediation, hydrological restoration and community engagement, Sasaki and the Bonnet Springs Park board have formed a unified vision of a new public asset that establishes strong civic stewardship across Central Florida. This future park will heal years of environmental neglect while creating a civic space that all of Lakeland can cherish.

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Anna Cawrse, PLA, ASLA, is Senior Associate Landscape Architect at Sasaki (acawrse@sasaki.com).

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SOCIAL EQUITY

Who Can Access the Greenway?

By Jeongseup Lee and Jamie Rae Walker

G

reenways are linear urban green spaces that not only connect parks, neighborhoods, businesses and other public spaces, but also strengthen the quality of life for residents through connectivity and outdoor recreation. Some studies have highlighted the positive health impacts of greenways, but not all residents have the same access to them. The differing opportunities to easily use greenways influence health.

Thus, it is important to examine whether neighborhoods with different demographic and socioeconomic statuses have equal access to greenways.

The city of San Antonio completed construction on a portion of its greenway system in 2018. The recently built portion of the system serves as a case study for conducting analysis to measure accessibility for various residents. These findings can help planners and policymakers investigate equality, or lack thereof, in access to greenways and develop policy directions to guide future decision-making.

The Methodology Census data was gathered and mapped to investigate the socioeconomic factors in Bexar County, Texas, which includes San Antonio. Geographic Infor-

28 Parks & Recreation

mation System (GIS) data, including information on streets, greenway trails and trailheads — indicating greenway entrances — were pulled from online city sources.

Environmental Systems Research Institute ArcMap tools assisted in measuring network distance (the shortest path between two locations) to investigate accessibility. These functions allow researchers to search a point on a map and find the closest facilities to that point.

The study measured accessibility using network distances (along streets) from each neighborhood to the nearest greenway entrances. It also captured the number of greenway entrances within specific distances (one, three

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and five miles, respectively) of the center of each Census block group.

It was assumed formal greenway route entrances (i.e., parking lots) were the only accessible places.

Accessibility was calculated using the shortest network distance from the center point of Census block groups to each greenway route entrance and the “service area” looked at the number of greenway entrances within one, three and five miles from the block groups.

Key Study Findings The results indicate San Antonio’s city center has a denser population than its outer area. The north side of Bexar County had a more significant proportion of households with high household incomes and per capita incomes than those of the south side. Furthermore, the urban area has higher greenway accessibility according to the network distance and the number of service areas than the suburban area. Block groups in urban areas had shorter distances to the nearest greenway entrances and tended to have more greenway entrances within one, three and five miles than those in suburban areas.

Meanwhile, data indicate education level and household income had an impact on the number of greenway entrances accessible within five miles. Spatial analysis also indicated the area with more housing units had lower accessibility of the greenway system. Other results depicted that population density, age, percentage of African American, Hispanic or Latino, female, higheducational attainment and unem-

ployed rate of the block group were also related to accessibility outcomes.

Application for Practice Over time, the field has tried to understand residential access to green infrastructure better and has made progress due to advances in technology. However, key concerns still exist and merit attention regarding methodological design and application. Methodologically, we need to revisit and better define “access,” as well as identify related technologies for efficient analysis.

This case study was based on a distance-based approach, but low socioeconomic status (SES) groups face more challenges in accessing greenways than distance alone. In future studies, more temporal and social barriers that the low SES groups face

should be taken into consideration.

However, we need to further develop practical mapping methodologies for these indicators.

What’s more, most studies focus on residential access. For example, the greenways in this case study were less accessible to residential areas. That is, the area with more housing units had lower accessibility of the greenway system. Given that greenway systems often aim to improve citizens’ health, efforts should focus on improving accessibility to areas with more housing units.

Additionally, while infrastructure such as greenway trails are generally considered positive additions to an area, associated affordable housing issues have introduced gentrification concerns in some U.S. neigh-

borhoods. Through collaboration, tools potentially could be refined to identify and verify factors and timelines associated with gentrification and to develop models to support municipalities in monitoring and minimizing tipping points.

Over time, GIS analysis has assisted researchers and practitioners in better understanding key relevant spatial issues in parks and recreation.

As technology enhancements refine and expedite the ability to conduct such analysis, opportunities exist for the field at large to further develop best practices in measurement, analysis and application.

Jeongseup Lee is a Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University, (pennyljs@tamu.edu). Jamie Rae Walker is Associate Professor and Extension Specialist at Texas A&M University, (jamie-rae-walker@tamu.edu).

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L AW R EV I EW

City Lifeguard Videotaped Women in Staff Changing Room

By James C. Kozlowski, J.D., Ph.D.

I

n the case of Rideout v. City of Bellingham, 2019 Wash. App. LEXIS 2652 (10/21/2019), the issue before the state appeals court was whether the defendant, City of Bellingham, Washington, was responsible for an employee using his cellphone to videotape female employees in an aquatic center changing room.

Facts of the Case David Frick was employed by the City of Bellingham (City) as a recreation instructor at the Arne Hanna Aquatic Center (Aquatic Center). Frick had worked at the Aquatic Center from 1996 to 2016. His duties included lifeguarding, leading water aerobics classes and swimming lessons.

Frick also was tasked with opening the pool in the morning, verifying lifeguard staff ’s timesheets and purchasing first aid and safety equipment.

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Frick was arrested on suspicion of possession of child pornography on August 4, 2016. During a police interview subsequent to Frick’s arrest, he admitted that he had been secretly video recording his coworkers while changing into and out of their swimsuits at work.

He captured his recordings by hiding a cellphone with a camera in a locked locker in the staff changing room. Bellingham police were able to identify the victims in these recordings when they seized Frick’s computer devices and phone.

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It was established that plaintiff Michaiah Rideout was one of the victims of Frick’s secret recordings at work. The City was notified of Frick’s conduct and these recordings on August 5, 2016, one day after his arrest. Frick’s superiors and coworkers were shocked by the news. During his 20-year employment at the Aquatic Center, no one had ever complained about inappropriate behavior by Frick.

The only complaint recalled by the Aquatic Center manager was when a patron indicated that Frick told jokes during water aerobics class. Only two fellow employees recalled seeing Frick with a cellphone at work.

Plaintiffs Michaiah Rideout and Joey Rideout (collectively the

Rideouts) sued the City in April 2017, alleging the City was vicariously liable for Frick’s conduct, the City had created a hostile work environment by failing to protect employees from Frick and that the City breached a duty to inspect for hazardous conditions.

In December 2017, the City moved for summary judgment.

In so doing, the City denied any responsibility; i.e., “vicarious liability” for Frick’s conduct since it was “outside the scope of his employment.” The City also denied that it had created a hostile work environment. The trial court agreed and granted the City’s motion for summary judgment dismissing all claims against the City. (In a separate hearing, the Rideouts later were granted summary judgment on their claims against Frick.) The Rideouts appealed the City’s summary judgment dismissing their claims.

Foreseeable Employee Misconduct?

On appeal, the City reiterated its motion for summary judgment argument that “there is no evidence showing that the City authorized, knew, or should have known of Frick’s alleged harassing behavior against his coworkers or that the City failed to take prompt and adequate remedial action.” Further, the City claimed there was no evidence of “foreseeability,” which was “one of the essential elements of a claim for direct liability for an employer.” In so doing, the City noted that the Rideouts themselves had acknowledged on the record the lack of foreseeability. Specifically, the Rideouts had said, “absolutely not,” when asked if there

were “any signs that Frick was capable of such behavior.”

In reviewing the trial court’s granting summary judgment to the City, the appeals court would determine whether the pretrial record established there was “no genuine issue as to any material fact,” which needed to be resolved at a trial. Within the context of a motion for summary judgment, a “material fact” would be “one upon which the outcome of the litigation depends.” In the absence of any “genuine issue of any material fact” in the pretrial record, the appeals court noted that the City was “entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”

On appeal, the Rideouts did not challenge the City’s denial of vicarious liability; i.e., agency liability for the negligence of its employees committed within the scope of their employment. Instead, the Rideouts claimed the pretrial record still contained unresolved “questions of fact” as to whether the City had “direct liability” for negligence under the circumstances of this case.

According to the appeals court: “Both the vicarious liability of the City and any independent direct negligence tort claim of a hostile work environment hinge on whether Frick’s actions were foreseeable.”

In reviewing the pretrial record, the appeals court found the Rideouts had failed to “advance any genuine issue of material fact about the foreseeability of Frick’s conduct.” Absent any evidence of foreseeability, the appeals court acknowledged, Rideouts’ claims of liability against the City would fail.

That being said, the appeals court did note that the Rideouts had

raised “a general concern of video voyeurism within public pools.”

However, in the opinion of the appeals court, such general concerns were “unresponsive to the City’s foreseeability arguments,” denying any responsibility or liability for Frick’s actions.

Moreover, the appeals court found the City had a policy in place in the year when Frick’s actions were discovered, which prohibited recording devices at Arne Hanna Aquatic Center. In so doing, the appeals court found the City had reasonably addressed the Rideouts’ “generalized concerns within the pool industry” regarding “video voyeurism.” Accordingly, in the opinion of the appeals court, the City should not “face liability for Frick’s violation of that policy.”

In determining whether the City should be legally responsible and potentially liable for the actions of Frick, the appeals court cited the traditional master/servant rule that is generally applied to determine employer liability for employee misconduct.

Master/Servant Liability In determining whether the City should be legally responsible and potentially liable for the actions of Frick, the appeals court cited the traditional master/servant rule that is generally applied to determine employer liability for employee misconduct: Where the servant’s intentionally tortious [i.e., negligent] or crim-

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L AW R EV I EW

The appeals court acknowledged that “sexual misconduct” in the workplace by an employee would not constitute acts within the furtherance of the employer’s business. inal acts are not performed in furtherance of the master’s business, the master will not be held liable as a matter of law even though the employment situation provided the opportunity for the servant’s wrongful acts or the means for carrying them out.

As noted by the court: “where an employee commits an assault in order to effect a purpose of his or her own, the employer is not li-

32 Parks & Recreation

able.” Moreover, the appeals court acknowledged that “sexual misconduct” in the workplace by an employee would not constitute acts within the furtherance of the employer’s business: Washington case law is clear that unless an employee’s sexual misconduct was foreseeable, the employer is generally not liable.

For an employer to be vicariously liable for an employee’s misconduct, the threshold questions are whether that employee was acting in the furtherance of the employer’s business and within the scope of employment.... [W]here an employee’s acts are directed toward personal sexual gratification, the employee’s conduct falls outside the scope of his or her employment.

In this particular instance, the court acknowledged: “Frick’s con-

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duct of attaching a cellphone with a camera inside a locker to record his coworkers changing is an undisputed fact.” Moreover, the court noted: “This act was clearly unauthorized by Aquatic Center management and undertaken for Frick’s own sexual gratification so should be understood as squarely outside his scope of employment.” Since Frick had “engaged in this conduct for personal gratification unrelated to his employer,” the appeals court concluded, “the City cannot be vicariously liable.”

Accordingly, the appeals court held: “The trial court’s ruling on summary judgment in favor of the City on the vicarious liability claims was proper.”

Direct Liability In contrast to vicarious liability wherein an employer may be legally responsible for the negligent acts of an employee committed within the scope of employment, the appeals court noted: “An employer can be directly liable for conduct that is outside of the scope of employment if the acts of the employee were foreseeable.” For such “direct liability,” the court further noted the appropriate legal standard would be “whether the employer had prior knowledge of the dangerous tendencies of the employee.”

Under this legal standard for determining direct liability for an employer’s negligence, the appeals court agreed with the City’s assertion that “all of the Rideouts’ direct negligence claims turn on the foreseeability of Frick’s actions.” Based upon the pretrial record before the trial court, the appeals court found:

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“The Rideouts failed to allege any facts to establish that Frick’s conduct was foreseeable, therefore subjecting the City to a direct liability claim based upon the City’s failure to protect its employees or to inspect for hazardous conditions”: The Rideouts did not offer evidence that the Aquatic Center management knew or should have known of Frick’s dangerous propensity. The only known issue as to Frick’s conduct during his employment was a single patron complaining that he would “test” jokes during water aerobics class. There is nothing in the record to suggest the jokes made in class were sexual in nature.

According to the appeals court, there was, however, undisputed evidence introduced that “the same year that Frick’s conduct was discovered, the Aquatic Center had an issue with some female staff members’ underwear being stolen from their lockers and some having strange suggestive messages and fixtures attached to them.” In addition, some other staff members reported similar findings as to their underwear left inside their lockers. The appeals court, however, found the City had “investigated this incident and determined a janitorial staff member from another department was responsible.”

To establish that Frick’s acts should have been foreseeable to the City, the appeals court noted that the Rideouts also had relied on the fact that “Frick placed a lock on his staff locker to accomplish his surreptitious recordings” and “Frick was the only employee to use a lock.” In the opinion of the appeals court, without more evidence, Frick’s mere use of a lock on a locker was not indicative of his making “surreptitious recording.” On the contrary, the court found Frick’s “utilization of a lock on a locker is merely evidence of seeking to protect the contents from theft or other disturbance, particularly in light of the issues with the janitor removing or affixing messages to undergarments.”

In addition to Frick’s use of a lock for his locker, the Rideouts claimed “the City should have known of Frick’s dangerousness,” because statements from two Aquatic Center employees indicated they had seen Frick with a cellphone at work. In the opinion of the appeals court, Frick’s cellphone did not “establish any dispute of material fact regarding the foreseeability of Frick’s actions.” As characterized by the appeals court, mere evidence of an individual “having a cellphone in one’s possession at work is not evidence of that per

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would require “the employer have knowledge of the dangerous tendencies of that particular employee.” In this particular instance, the appeals court found: “The purported evidence of video voyeurism at pools at best raises an issue of a general danger within the industry.” As characterized by the appeals court, the exhibits and expert testimony offered by the Rideouts “would only support general knowledge of the broad concern of pool voyeurism.”

Such general knowledge of video voyeurism imputed to the City would, therefore, be insufficient to show the employer City in this case, “knows or should know of the necessity and opportunity for exercising such control” over Frick and his cellphone use to have prevented video voyeurism. son’s intent to illegally record their coworkers.” Further, equating simple possession of a cellphone in the workplace with a hostile work environment would, in the opinion of the court, “result in untenable consequences for employers across a variety of industries and professional fields.”

“General concern within an industry does not establish the particularized dangerousness of a specific employee.”

Voyeurism Risk at Pools On appeal, the Rideouts further argued: “the exhibits they submitted about the general issue of video voyeurism at swimming pools raised an issue of material fact as to whether the City was aware 34 Parks & Recreation

or should have been aware of the possibility that Frick would engage in such conduct.” These exhibits included “a number of newspaper articles from across the country about incidents of video voyeurism.” In addition, the Rideouts offered the testimony of a purported expert that discussed the risk of voyeurism at pools. The appeals court, however, rejected the notion that the City knew or should have known about Frick’s misconduct based upon such evidence, suggesting general concerns about video voyeurism at swimming pools.

According to the appeals court: “General concern within an industry does not establish the particularized dangerousness of a specific employee.” On the contrary, for an employer to be liable under a claim of negligent supervision, the appeals court

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General Criminality Danger Unlike negligent supervision liability, which would require “the employer have knowledge of the dangerous tendencies of that particular employee,” the appeals court noted that an employer could still be liable for negligent protection against a “general danger” of criminal misconduct.

Specifically, the court found: An employer owes a duty to an employee to make “reasonable provision against foreseeable dangers of criminal misconduct to which the employment exposes the employee.”

In this particular instance, however, the appeals court found no breach of any duty to protect Ms. Rideout against the crime of video voyeurism because there was no evidence that “the City should have foreseen Frick’s conduct.”

Where there is no evidence that the defendant knew of the dangerous propensities of the individual responsible for the crime and there is no history of such crimes on the premises, courts have held the criminal conduct unforeseeable as a matter of law.

In this particular instance, the appeals court found Frick’s criminal conduct was indeed unforeseeable: “All employees interviewed pursuant to this case were shocked when they learned that Frick had engaged in this tortious conduct and no one foresaw that he was possible of such, including Rideout herself.”

Moreover, the appeals court reiterated its finding that Frick’s use of a lock on his locker and the fact that “two employees had seen him at

work with a phone are insufficient to establish a genuine issue of material fact as to the foreseeability of Frick’s conduct.” Similarly, the appeals court underscored its rejection of the opinion of an expert witness and newspaper articles offered by the Rideouts on the general issue of video voyeurism. In the opinion of the appeals court, such pretrial evidence offered by the Rideouts failed to show not only “the particular dangerousness of Frick, but also as to a generally foreseeable danger, which would have been essential in order to establish a duty for the City.”

Based upon a review of the pretrial record, the appeals court held “the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the City” and dismissing the Rideouts’ lawsuit. err in granting summary judgment in favor of the City” and dismissing the Rideouts’ lawsuit. The appeals court, therefore, affirmed the summary judgment of the trial court in favor of the City.

Conclusion As a result, based upon a review of the pretrial record, the appeals court held “the trial court did not

James C. Kozlowski, J.D., Ph.D., is an Attorney and Associate Professor in the School of Sport, Recreation, and Tourism at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia (jkozlows@gmu. edu). Webpage with link to law review articles archive (1982 to present): http://mason.gmu.edu/~jkozlows

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St. Louis:

IMAGES COURTESY OF GREAT RIVERS GREENWAY AND STOSS LANDSCAPE URBANISM

A Path Toward Equitable Design

In Part 2 of an ongoing series, Chouteau Greenway’s new Framework Plan offers a blueprint for social equity and economic prosperity

By Vitisia Paynich

36 Parks & Recreation

S

ince welcoming nearly 300 St. Louisans to an open house for the Chouteau Greenway project in February 2019, Great Rivers Greenway (GRG) has continued to engage the community by encouraging substantive discussions between city officials, business owners and community stakeholders to determine the overall look, feel and eventual name of this $250 million greenway development. The publicprivate partnership spans 15 miles and 20 neighborhoods, with the goal of connecting communities and unifying different populations.

The greenway plan aims to link Forest Park through the downtown area to Gateway Arch National Park,

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and Fairground Park to Tower Grove Park. What’s more, the expansive project will encompass north and south

connections to the city’s culturally diverse neighborhoods, parks, business and art districts, employment centers, transportation hubs, and myriad cultural and educational institutions. St. Louis’ Chouteau Greenway represents one part of an overall network of greenways under development throughout Missouri’s second-largest city.

While the first installment (nrpa. org/StLouisFuture) featured in Parks & Recreation’s May 2019 issue focused on

GRG’s initial public relations strategy and community outreach efforts, the following provides insight into the project’s next phase — the Framework Plan.

A Greenway by Any Other Name “This isn’t just about building a greenway, it’s about using the greenway as a catalyst to promote job and wealth creation to increase the population in the city of St. Louis

and to ensure that we look at the entire process and project with an equity lens,” affirms Susan Trautman, CEO of Great Rivers Greenway. “So, the questions became: How would we do that? How would we make sure that we had voices at the table that had never been at the table? And, how would we ensure that we were comprehensive in our thinking and our planning?”

Building on the work and guid-

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S T. L O U I S

ance from a Steering Committee and four Working Groups over several months, GRG unveiled the Chouteau Greenway Framework Plan in December 2019. The plan focuses on four main topics: Alignment (feasibility of possible routes), Design & Identity (look and feel of the greenway), Economic Growth (the greenway as a catalyst for opportunity) and Equity (equitable outcomes in project and process).

GRG also reached out to the community at large, asking for citizens to help give the greenway an official name. Community members were urged to submit suggested names via text or online by January 31, with a scheduled February meeting to narrow down all the name submissions.

At this writing, a name is yet to be determined. For now, the project identifies simply as Chouteau Greenway.

Progress Begins with St. Louisans Full transparency with community members remains key to the planning process. The Framework Plan Engagement and Outreach phase followed the open house. The engagement team participated in 25 community meetings, ward meetings, events and festivals to foster healthy dialogue around equity, governance, economic development, as

well as design, development and construction for the project.

This helped to guide Stoss Landscape Urbanism as the team began contemplating the overall vision and aesthetics around the greenway and incorporating economic and equity principles based on collective citizen input.

Chris Reed, founder and director of Stoss Landscape Urbanism, recalls: “We were...very aware of the big challenges ahead and big aspirations [that] the client — the city and the people of St. Louis — would have for the project. It’s not every day that you get a project where the client tells you this project has to make significant impact on issues of social and racial equity within the city.”

For the past several months, the Stoss team has worked in concert with the Steering Committee and Working Groups on the Framework Plan.

According to Reed, GRG was “very careful to get people at the table who hadn’t been at the table before.”

He says the agency looked carefully at all the demographics of St. Louis, such as age, race, gender, location, socioeconomics, etc., “and put together this amazingly diverse group of people....” What’s more, the Stoss design team has not only participated in meetings, but also in “Feedback & Fun Fests” to get to know community members better, while assessing

their wants and needs that would ultimately inform the design.

Equitable Design Meets Economic Development Social equity remains at the forefront of the Chouteau Greenway project, with community members serving as the standard-bearers of inclusion through urban renewal. “When we [began] this project…we had learned from many other great city projects about the importance of addressing displacement from the start,” Trautman says.

“We knew in order for this project to be truly equitable, we needed to move into North City to make investments in African American neighborhoods that hadn’t seen investments in many decades,” Reed notes. Within the Framework Plan, there are 26 equity strategies, which have action plans underneath them.

“One strategy tool for creating environments that everyone feels welcome is the importance of art and, particularly, art by people of color,” says Trautman. A significant number of residents drove that point home during the community engagement process. The goal is to give each neighborhood near the greenway its own identity by celebrating its history and culture through art installations.

This call for action from St. Louis residents prompted the formation of the Artists of Color Council (AOCC). The group comprises eight diverse local artists representing different forms of media. The AOCC will assist the design team in developing a series of art strategies for the Chouteau Greenway project.

Breaking Down Racial Barriers When it comes to the question The goal is to give each neighborhood near the greenway its own identity.

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The project spans 15 miles and 20 neighborhoods.

about where specific projects will begin, Reed admits he doesn’t quite have an answer. “What I can tell you is [that] the project is very resolute in going both east-west and north-south — and doing that simultaneously,” he asserts.

Reed says the team is focused on tearing down racial barriers in the city and, in particular, breaking the Delmar Divide. The term refers to African American neighborhoods situated north of Delmar Boulevard and represents the dividing line that stretches east and west through St. Louis City and St. Louis County. Its historic past is plagued by racial segregation and economic inequality.

What’s more, Reed notes that the Stoss team has been very careful in making sure the greenway’s design has a clear, physical identity “as it passes through an incredibly diverse set of neighborhoods and industrial areas in downtown and in all of these different kinds of places….”

He adds that it’s very important for people to understand that when they see it, they know right away that it’s Chouteau Greenway.

“The other thing we did is really think about open space programming and ancillary projects that might…create nodes of activities to complement some of the other activities, amenities and destinations that we’re connecting, but also to invite new audiences to different places within the city,” Reed says.

For example, one of the most significant projects is proposed at the west end of the mall downtown that leads to the Arch. “We’re proposing with artist Damon Davis, the Mill Creek Valley Project — which memorializes, in an open space, the African

American community that was torn apart for highway construction and redevelopments during the 1950s,” he explains. “And in doing so, we’re giving African American history an equal place…to all the other histories that are represented on the mall.”

Investing in the Greenway Since embarking on this ambitious project, Trautman admits that the easiest part so far has been the transportation component of the plan.

“Great Rivers Greenway can build, maintain and operate a green line, but it’s going to take critical partners to address affordable housing, recreation and vacant land,” she says.

Trautman notes that within a quarter mile of the greenway, “we’re likely to have the most investment and the most return on investment.” Working with their partners, the GRG team has identified vacant lands and thought about what could be done in the short run. “Maybe it’s an orchard, farmers market, playgrounds or a quality open space area to be defined by the community,” she says. “But, we continue to work with affordable housing partners, institutional partners, schools, colleges, health organizations.”

Where Do They Go From Here?

Now that the Framework Plan is complete, Trautman says: “The next step is to really break the project and geography up into the neighborhoods and work much more closely with the residents who live there.”

Reed says the order of the projects is something that his team and GRG continue to work through.

“There are still a lot of questions to be answered because even though we’ve developed ideas about design and economic developments and where the greenway might go, there are still many, many rounds of community engagement to happen and that’s going to take a while.”

While GRG and Stoss agree that more planning and community discussions are needed before moving full steam ahead on constructing the Chouteau Greenway, they remain laser-focused on bringing equitable design to the people of St. Louis.

To hear Susan Trautman, CEO of GRG, talk more about the Chouteau Greenway project, tune in to the March bonus episode of Open Space Radio at openspaceradio.com or on your favorite podcast app.

Vitisia Paynich is a Freelance Writer based in Southern California.

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Designing with Community in Mind Flipping the script on the master planning process in North Baton Rouge, Louisiana

By Anna Cawrse, PLA, ASLA, and Joshua Brooks, PLA, ASLA

North Baton Rouge has seen a decades-long pattern of cultural assets and public investments moving south. This migration has left North Baton Rouge starved for amenities. BREC’s Baton Rouge Zoo, one of North Baton Rouge’s cultural icons located in Greenwood Park, was one of the amenities on the cusp of relocating to a southern part of the parish. The recommendation to move the zoo was due in part to an increase in annual visitors, but largely came at the behest of the zoo’s core philanthropic community members, who indicated that they would be more willing to fund the building of a new zoo in a more “sustainable location” than to fund new improvements at its current location.

As a result of local outcry across 40 Parks & Recreation

the parish and with pressure of community leadership from the northern part of the parish, the proposed relocation of the zoo ultimately did not come to pass. Instead, BREC decided it was time for a big change.

The zoo and park provided the perfect opportunity to reinvest in the neighborhood by reimagining these incredible public spaces.

BREC set out to create a nationally renowned park and public space that would demonstrate its commitment to the North Baton Rouge community and the parish as a whole. In late 2018, BREC hired Sasaki and Torre Design Consortium to lead the effort to reimagine Greenwood Park and the Baton Rouge Zoo as a cohesive community asset of which everyone could be proud. Now, at 660 acres, Greenwood Park is the largest park

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in BREC’s system, and it provides a chance to address the contentious issues around disinvestment. Through an intensive engagement process, the new master plan created broad consensus and support around a design that includes roughly $35 million in publicly funded improvements for the park and zoo — work currently underway as part of Phase 1 implementation.

Flipping the Script After several years of discussions, including recommendations to move the zoo and to redesign the space left behind, both the local community and larger parish were a bit on edge.

Local media and frustrated citizens came to the table with skepticism at the project’s outset. The planning and design teams took a purposefully broad and blank-slate approach to the engagement process, focusing on education and listening before offering any solutions. In order to invite as many voices into the process as possible, the team designed engagement methods accessible to a range of preferences, locations and capacities for participation. The team’s attention toward stimulating true two-way A map of the proposed Greenwood Park and Baton Rouge Zoo redesign.

IMAGES COURTESY OF SASAKI

W

ithin East Baton Rouge Parish in Louisiana sits the neighborhood of North Baton Rouge. This predominantly African American community has long seen less investment than other areas within the parish. This fact, along with long-term demographic shifts due to out-migration and loss of area institutions, has left the North Baton Rouge area under-performing in key socioeconomic indicators compared to the rest of the parish. Despite decades of disinvestment, these trends are starting to be reversed through a thriving culture and incredible community leadership. One of the more visual manifestations of these efforts has been playing out in the recent redesign of the Recreation and Park Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge (BREC) Greenwood Park and the Baton Rouge Zoo.

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B AT O N R O U G E

dialogue, along with documenting the process through rigorous quantitative and qualitative summaries of these efforts, started to build trust between the design team, BREC, the public and community leaders.

Open houses that enabled direct interactions with members of the community became the primary format for engaging the public.

The team hosted these open houses within different neighborhoods and scheduled them at multiple times throughout the day to ensure that residents could attend. Presentations were kept to a minimum, offering the community ample opportunities to make themselves heard.

To broaden engagement further, the design team created online experiences that went far beyond a traditional survey to accompany each step of the process. These tools, such as Sasaki’s digital CoMap, which visually maps user experience to collect data, provided a

quantitative view of the way people perceive the area and used the park.

The team conducted a statistically representative door-to-door survey across the entire parish. This information was used to validate the demographic makeup of sample participants, as well as gather more responses to a number of questions.

Across all forms of public engagement, the team aggregated the anonymous input to identify trends, ensuring the feedback was directly informing the park’s master plan.

Once the master plan process concluded, BREC and the design team demonstrated their commitment to the project by hosting a large “Party-in-the-Park” event, which nearly 1,000 people attended. People engaged with the unveiled master plan and heard words of support from community leaders at the event.

This was branded as the “kick-off ” to the implementation phase, framing a continuum of planning and design for a built outcome. The master plan laid out a series of programs and ideas that will be rolled out during the detailed design and construction phase to continue demonstrating progress at intervals.

Balancing Natural Assets and Site Constraints with Community Desires The vision for the master plan is, first and foremost, inspired by the ideas and preferences voiced by the community of East Baton Rouge Parish. Four guiding principles for Greenwood Park were created from input received from the community: • Celebrate Louisiana’s Nature: Embrace the ecology of Greenwood Park and create sustainOver the 10-month long master plan process, more than 4,000 people were engaged in East Baton Rouge and beyond.

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able opportunities for people to experience the landscape • A Park for Every Day and the Big Day: Provide a balance of everyday neighborhood amenities and destination activities that are a regional draw • Open Up and Reach Out: Provide physical connectivity for walkers, bikers and drivers to make the park the heart of the parish • Welcome and Grow: Put community at the heart of the park’s design and implementation To ensure the master plan is grounded in reality and focused on implementation, the design team articulated a number of opportunities and constraints, which were born out of a rigorous site analysis and used to inform the physical design of the site.

The analysis began to drive a design vocabulary that was shaped by the site’s physical beauty as well as its history — ensuring that decisions about what to remove and what to maintain were considered with the site’s context in mind. Economics of the site also were factored into decisions to make certain the design could be implemented. For example, recent improvements to the central waterfront area, along with relatively flat and clear conditions, drove the team to flip the entrance of the zoo to be more integrated with the central waterfront area and to create a new visitor experience that unified the park into one cultural campus.

Thinking About Community Impact Before It Happens From the outset of the project, BREC and the Sasaki-led design team realized community outreach needed to go beyond design input to achieve true community partnership; the master plan suggestions needed to be baked into decision-making and play

Sasaki Senior Associate Anna Cawrse shows a community member where they are currently located on a 15-foot plan of the proposed park.

an integral role in the implementation strategy to ensure that this future park remained, first and foremost, a park for North Baton Rouge. An entire chapter of the master plan, called “Community Program,” is dedicated to this idea and explores how through strategic investments, the reimagined Greenwood Park and Baton Rouge Zoo can help create future investment in the area without triggering gentrification.

“I believe Greenwood Park is one of the most diverse parks in the BREC park system. It happens to be located in the northwest portion of the parish and serves a wide array of leisure needs for the entire region and surrounding neighborhoods,” says Carolyn McKnight-Fredd, former director of BREC and current NRPA board member. Pointing out that the surrounding neighborhood demographics are predominately African American, she adds, “It is extremely important for the reimagined space to be tailored to both the region and the neighborhood.”

The Plan to Stem Gentrification The median income in the area surrounding Greenwood Park is 30 percent lower than that of East Baton Rouge Parish, with about 21 percent of individuals living at or below the poverty line. Additionally, there is a higher unemployment rate and greater concentration of renters. These issues are exacerbated by limited access to transportation networks, fewer job opportunities and heightened exposure to environmental stressors, such as reduced air quality. These contextual forces became a core driver in not only the physical layout of the park master plan, but also in the plan’s implementation strategy for the coming decades.

Despite consistent economic and

environmental challenges, a number of groups and individuals are working tirelessly to make North Baton Rouge a better place for those who call it home. Organizations and others are creating opportunities and targeting issues, such as health, job access and housing, that have long challenged this area.

The design team aligned Greenwood Park and the Baton Rouge Zoo with the positive progress occurring in this area. The community development strategies presented in the master plan aim to assist BREC in forging partnerships for the betterment of the North Baton Rouge, further solidifying Greenwood Park and the Baton Rouge Zoo as truly catalytic community amenities. The investment in Greenwood Park, which will become an identifiable, signature park for the parish, is a great start. That investment, however, must be supported by other planning initiatives for the surrounding community to bring more people to the park and to ensure that the nearby neighborhoods experience the benefits of the park improvements.

The master plan recommends five community program goals in association with the plan for Greenwood Park: • Celebrate the unique community of North Baton Rouge and the surrounding area • Provide amenities and opportunities for surrounding neighborhoods • Connect people to the park through strategic infrastructure upgrades • Grow long-term economic strength and opportunity of the area through physical and community relationships • Catalyze growth by supporting broader economic development strategies for North Baton Rouge and beyond

A Plan with Real Solutions Thoughtful and honest engagement blended with rigorous technical analysis, communicated clearly, can lead to realistic solutions that minimize negative outcomes and benefit community unity, economic vitality and environmental health.

“As I think back to my time at BREC, news reporters and community members asked me about my favorite place to play, and I often told them about Greenwood.

It is somewhat of a hidden gem in the park system,” says McKnightFredd. “I have faith in the [redesign] and in the future of the park.

Greenwood Park will be lifted up as the idea model for excellence in environmental conservation, resiliency, health and wellness, and social cohesion. It will represent what community-building is all about.”

You can read the full Greenwood Community Park and Baton Rouge Zoo Master Plan at brec.org/ ReimagineZooGreenwood.

Anna Cawrse, PLA, ASLA, is a Senior Associate at Sasaki (acawrse@sasaki.com). Joshua Brooks, PLA, ASLA, is a Senior Associate at Sasaki (jbrooks@sasaki.com).

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Making Corporate Urban Park Roundtable highlights key ways to effectively cultivate corporate partnerships

By Maura Lout

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T

he United States, along with the rest of the world, continues to urbanize at a steady clip. Despite this ongoing influx into cities, public funding for park and recreation services has only just recovered from severe cuts caused by the Great Recession, according to research by The Trust for Public Land.

Both government agencies and nonprofits continue to look for funding streams to sustain their parks. An increasing mix of public-private partnerships, conservancies, advocacy groups and business improvement or park improvement dis-

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Partnerships Work tricts have developed to secure more financial, community and political support for public parks. While there is corporatesector support and increased corporate social investment in general, many agencies and other partners lack defined guidelines for engaging in and successfully managing that type of support.

One of the many ways the Central Park Conservancy’s Institute for Urban Parks shares knowledge with other parks is through Urban Park Roundtables, which are held each spring and fall. The sessions convene park professionals, leaders and administrators from around the country to collectively develop “next practices” in urban

park management and public-private partnerships. With the goal of strengthening the field of practice, each roundtable focuses on a specific topic of relevance to our host city.

Participants spend two days immersed in a “community of practice,” through facilitated discussions, peer networking, panels and park tours.

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C O R P O R AT E P A R T N E R S H I P S

Our fifth and most recent roundtable took place in Detroit, in partnership with the city of Detroit Parks and Recreation Department. The city’s rebound from bankruptcy has been in the works for nearly a decade, making it an ideal location to host this roundtable discussion. Following a 2013 closure of all but 19 parks in the 309park system, Detroit is experiencing a rejuvenation of its existing open spaces and the development of new ones through critical public agency and nonprofit partner efforts. Using a strategic plan to enhance maintenance services and capital improvements in all of its parks over a 10-year span, the city has leveraged local and national philanthropy along with state and federal grants to enhance park funding.

Clarity in Planning and Engagement While much of Detroit has bene-

fited from corporate-sector support during its rebound, there have been some concerns about the need for clear planning and engagement when it comes to corporate involvement in its parks and public spaces.

As part of the Detroit roundtable, 30 park professionals gathered to discuss and explore these issues together and share knowledge about how best to craft corporate partnerships.

In addition to park representatives from the city, participants joined from park organizations and agencies in Austin, Texas; Buffalo, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Denver, Colorado; Ferndale, Michigan; Los Angeles, California; New York, New York; San Diego, California; St. Louis, Missouri; and Washington, D.C. The participants also toured several of Detroit’s parks, some of which are supported by publicprivate partnerships, including Valade

Park, Belle Isle Park, Butzel Family Park, Dueweke Park and Tolan Park.

Through facilitated dialogue and park tours, participants raised some concerns and noted areas of interest related to corporate sponsorships in public parks, including: • The rapidly changing corporate landscape and the perceived need to “chase” a fundable project.

How can park organizations adapt to engage corporate partners in a way that is meaningful for both parties, avoiding an arrangement that feels simply transactional?

• The perceived lack of time and capacity for relationship cultivation and the resulting desire for longer-term corporate relationships.

• Participants expressed concern about corporate branding in public spaces and asked how to best balance acknowledgement and attribution with the nature of a public good.

Three Common Ways Urban Park Organizations Engage Corporate Philanthropy Private philanthropy is a critical source of funding for restoring, managing and, in some cases, operating urban parks throughout the country. In 2019, private spending for city parks by 181 park nonprofits totaled $596 million, an increase from $499 million in 2018 (tpl.org/2019-CityPark-Facts). This spending often is financed by individual giving, foundation and grant funding, or corporate philanthropy. In the United States, giving by corporations is estimated to have increased by 5.4 percent in 2018, totaling $20.05 billion (an increase of 2.9 percent, adjusted for inflation) (giving usa.org). These key findings are echoed in the annual Giving in Numbers: 2019 Edition report from Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP): total corporate social investments increased by 11 percent over three years to a record $26 billion (cecp.co/ Giving-In-Numbers).

While these figures include a wide range

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of other fields and disciplines besides urban parks, this is encouraging news when exploring ways to engage corporate philanthropy.

1

Sponsorships

Corporate sponsorship support is a payment by a corporation to a nonprofit to further the nonprofit’s mission (tinyurl.com/unfwxaw). These can include events, programs, initiatives, park assets and amenities, and people. Organizations generally acknowledge these gifts through public announcements, naming opportunities, press events or print and web media, thereby recognizing the contributions of the sponsor’s business.

2

Time

Corporations share their staff in time — often a much-needed boost for organizations with limited capacity

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and staffing. Examples of time commitments include participation in parkbased volunteer events and in leadership groups, such as boards, support for administrative aspects, commitment to a time-bound partnership and establishment of connections for the supported organization.

3

Gift-Matching

Gift-matching is a charitable donation by a corporation that matches an individual employee’s donation to a park organization, most often dollar-for-dollar. According to a survey conducted by the Big-Give Research Initiative, 84 percent of survey participants say they’re more likely to donate to a cause if their employer offers a match, and 1 in 3 donors indicate they’d give an even larger gift if matching is applied to their donation.

Leveraging Corporate Relationships Through these conversations, a series of shared suggestions for the basic building blocks of successful corporate partnerships emerged.

These findings help provide first steps, as well as guardrails, for thinking about how best to leverage corporate relationships.

Align your fundraising with your strategy. Use it to create points of reference that support strategic partnerships: • Create a strategic plan and be sure it includes a list of projects and tasks specifically for corporate partnerships.

• Identify what part of your plan a project can support before beginning conversations with prospective corporate partners.

• Leverage the assets and resources you already have. Use park master plans, program calendars and other tools to create alignment with corporate prospects.

• Set your terms, but be flexible. Offer a menu of options or opportunities for support, including price points. This helps to ensure your

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF MAURA LOUT/CENTRAL PARK CONSERVANCY

• Educating corporate partners is still one of the biggest hurdles our participants encounter. Ensuring partners understand that funding is required to keep a park in good shape continues to be a challenge.

• Saying “no” often feels wrong, even when the corporate gift is not a good match. But, sometimes, it is the right course of action and will provide longer-term benefits.

• Reconciling the size of the local corporate community with the needs among park organizations and agencies can be challenging. Participants wondered how to address a finite pool of prospects and “competition” among local park projects.

Participants at the Urban Park Roundtable share effective strategies and challenges of corporate philanthropy for urban parks.

corporate partner knows the value of your time and the opportunity you will create for their company.

• Get comfortable with saying no!

This can be a very intimidating prospect, especially when you are cultivating your first partnerships.

But, use it as an opportunity to educate and build your relationship by finding common ground.

Focus on long-term vs. short-term dollars: • Be honest about the cost. The corporation is getting something of value and that should be made abundantly clear. Staff time, access to restrooms, training (however minimal), refreshments and your other services all have value.

• Make a plan and commit resources for a successful, in-park volunteer day. Invest in making sure it is a well-run, organized event to avoid undermining your staff, turning off current donors or dissuading future donors. Use this as a chance to both address needs and build success.

Build a good partnership: • Be transparent. It builds trust and helps both partners to establish and set clear expectations.

• Create internal champions. Meet regularly with internal teams and departments to gain an understanding of their needs and communicate how a partnership might serve the organization at large.

• Add representatives from corporate sectors to boards and committees to support clarity and shared vision.

• Be sure both partners know the “theme” of the partnership.

• Leverage on-site events to serve as a visual and physical case for support and offer a direct connection

to a specific aspect of a park.

• Grow corporate partner relationships through ongoing engagement.

Create a united local front: • Establish citywide coordination or partner coalitions between nonprofits/agency partners to develop guidelines, share resources and establish standards across city green spaces for corporate partners.

What Is Best for Your Park and Stakeholders?

Because of the dynamic overlap of social, political and cultural factors at play in urban parks, corporate partnerships with park nonprofits and agencies will vary in scope, scale and execution. One of the biggest takeaways from the Detroit roundtable, however, was that it is OK to set the terms that are best for your park — even if that means passing on the first opportunity. But, using the takeaways from our roundtables will help you find an opportunity that meets both your needs and the needs of your future corporate partners.

The next Urban Park Roundtable will take place May 6-8, 2020, in Raleigh, North Carolina. For more information, visit centralparknyc.org/institute.

Maura Lout is the Executive Director of the Central Park Conservancy’s Institute for Urban Parks (mlout@ centralparknyc.org).

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OPERATIONS The 10th NRPA Parks Build Community Project Begins Significant renovations in store for Orlando’s Grand Avenue Park

By Suzanne Nathan

T

his spring, NRPA and the City of Orlando Families, Parks and Recreation Department will begin working with generous donors on the renovation of Grand Avenue Park, the site chosen for the 10th NRPA Parks Build Community project. Portions of the park will undergo significant renovations as corporate donors and local companies come together to transform the area into a vibrant public space where residents of all ages can gather and play. The renovated park will be unveiled during the 2020 NRPA Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida, October 27–29. amazing park transformations to life. These projects demonstrate our commitment to ensure every person in every community has access to quality park and recreation amenities that boost quality of life and strengthen communities.”

The 12-acre parcel surrounding an architecturally significant and historic schoolhouse, built in 1926, creates the perfect landscape for Grand Avenue Park. This park was selected for the 10th NRPA Parks Build Community project, because it is at the center of a neighborhood in need of a renovated

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF ORLANDO FAMILIES, PARKS AND RECREATION

“NRPA is thrilled to announce its 10th Parks Build Community project,” says Kristine Stratton, NRPA president and CEO. “Over the years, we’ve had the distinct privilege of working with donors and park leaders from local agencies in cities where we host our annual conference to bring these

48 Parks & Recreation

public space to serve the community.

In addition, the City of Orlando Families, Parks and Recreation Department is planning multiple recreation enhancements and programs, including the renovation of the adjacent community center, making the overall project a community jewel.

Lisa Early, City of Orlando Families, Parks and Recreation director, says, “Playgrounds are such an integral part of childhood. I’ll never forget the wonderful experiences I was lucky to enjoy, swinging on swings and sliding down slides when I was a child. Residents of the neighborhood surrounding Grand Avenue Park feel the same way, and they’re thrilled to know that their beloved and historic park and its playgrounds are being renovated, and that now their own children will be able to build beloved memories there. I’m deeply grateful to the National Recreation and Park Association for supporting the Grand Avenue Park renovation, and I know the residents of this great neighborhood are grateful, too.”

In 1938, the Grand Avenue site was selected as one of four new summer playgrounds with activities supervised by the city’s then Recreation Department in partnership with the PTAs in the area. The purpose was to promote recreation for children, and it did for many years. Decades later, the school was slated for demolition, but The land surrounding a 1926 schoolhouse will serve as the grounds for the 10th NRPA Parks Build Community Project.

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ed for demolition, but was spared by the swift actions of the City of Orlando Families, Parks and Recreation Department leaders. The city is preserving the historic Grand Avenue Elementary School and repurposing the community landmark to a neighborhood center, which will include the relocation of the Pottery Studio and programming currently at the Downtown Recreation Center. It will also include expanded youth services for the neighborhood, including after-school and summer programs.

NRPA, along with the City of Orlando Families, Parks and Recreation Department, is proud to work alongside a growing group of generous donors that will contribute to the project, which is slated to begin during the spring. These donors include:

• Greenfields Outdoor Fitness (gfoutdoorfitness.com) • BCI Burke Company (bciburke.com) • GameTime/PlayCore (gametime.com) • Musco Lighting (musco.com) • DuMor Site Furnishings (dumor.com) • ForeverLawn (foreverlawn.com) • Epic Outdoor Cinema (epicoutdoorcinema.com) • Most Dependable Fountains, Inc. (mostdependable.com) • Gared Sports (garedsports.com) • Shade Systems, Inc. (shadesystemsinc.com) • Freenotes Harmony Park (freenotesharmonypark.com) NRPA’s Parks Build Community is a national initiative aimed at

demonstrating the transformative value of parks on the health and vitality of communities across America. Living close to parks and other recreation facilities is consistently related to higher physical activity levels for both adults and youth.

For more information about the NRPA Parks Build Community initiative, visit nrpa.org/Parks BuildCommunity and follow the hashtag #ParksBuildCommunity.

To learn more about participating in the 2020 Parks Build Community project, contact Gina MullinsCohen, NRPA’s vice president of communications and chief marketing officer, at gcohen@nrpa.com.

Suzanne Nathan is NRPA’s Public Relations Manager (snathan@nrpa.org).

THANK YOU TO THE DONORS OF THE 2020 NRPA PARKS BUILD COMMUNITY PROJECT

THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL RECREATION AND PARK ASSOCIATION

NRPA.ORG/PARKSBUILDCOMMUNITY

PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N .O R G | M A R C H 2 02 0 |

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Parks & Recreation

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In the feature article “Weeding Through the Thorny Debate on Glyphosate” in the February 2020 issue of Parks & Recreation magazine, Diane Lewis, physician and founder of the Great Healthy Yard Project, is incorrectly quoted as saying “that there is an association with increased rates of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and myelin melanoma.” The correct quote reads: “glyphosate exposure is associated with increased risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma.”

The article “Building Water Confidence” has been retracted from the online and ezine versions of the January 2020 issue of Parks & Recreation due to concerns about the safety of practices mentioned in the article.

Aquatix by Landscape Structures.....................................................13 Away with Geese...................................................................................51 BCI Burke Playgrounds................................................................... 9, 51 Bright Idea Shops, LLC.........................................................................51 Columbia Cascade Company............................................................25 DOGIPOT................................................................................................52 Doty & Sons Concrete Products, Inc. ..............................................51 Easi-Set Buildings ................................................................................52 ePACT Network..................................................................................... 33 Ex-Cell Kaiser.........................................................................................53

GameTime/Playcore........................................................................... C4 Goldenteak/The Wood Carver, Inc. ................................................53 Great American Business Products.................................................53 Greenfields Outdoor Fitness............................................................2, 3 Gyms for Dogs/Livin’ the Dog Life.................................................53 John Deere............................................................................................... 7 Kay Park Recreation.............................................................................54 Landscape Structures Inc................................................................ 4, 5 Milbank....................................................................................................27 Most Dependable Fountains............................................................. 33 Pilot Rock/R.J. Thomas Mfg. Co. ....................................................23 Poligon.....................................................................................................29 Polly Products........................................................................................54 Recreation Resource Management..................................................21 Ropecamp...............................................................................................54 Shade Systems..................................................................................C2, 1 Synthetic Surfaces................................................................................55 ULINE.......................................................................................................35 Vermont Systems Inc. (VSI)................................................................ 11 Victor Stanley..........................................................................................17

advertiser index

Errata

P. O. Box 241 Scotch Plains, NJ 07076 USA Tel: 908 233-6803 Fax: 908 233-6844 E-mail: info@nordot.com Web: www.nordot.com

(ISSN 0031-2215) is published monthly by the National Recreation and Park Association, 22377 Belmont Ridge Rd., Ashburn, VA 20148, a service organization supported by membership dues and voluntary contributions.

Copyright ©2020 by the National Recreation and Park Association. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Opinions expressed in signed articles are those of the writers and not necessarily those of NRPA. Issued to members at the annual subscription price of $30, included in dues. Subscription: $46 a year in the U.S.; $56 elsewhere. Single copy price: $7. Library rate: $58 a year in the U.S.; $68 elsewhere. Periodical postage paid at Ashburn, Virginia, and at additional mailing offices. Editorial and advertising offices at 22377 Belmont Ridge Rd., Ashburn, VA 20148. 703.858.0784. Postmaster, send address changes to Parks & Recreation, 22377 Belmont Ridge Rd., Ashburn, VA 20148.

PA R K S A N D R E C R E AT I O N .O R G | M A R C H 2 02 0 |

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Park Bench

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF GRANNY BASKETBALL LEAGUE

Granny’s Got Game!

The Granny Basketball League consists of more than 450 players on 40 teams across nine states — primarily in the Midwest — who take part in a program for women ages 50 and older who are interested in playing “a gentle game for women of a certain age,” according to the site (grannybasketball.com). Played in teams of six, players cannot run or jump — though they are encouraged to “hurry” — and there is no physical contact. The game, played true to traditional 1920s-era basketball rules, philosophy and culture, was created to ensure safety of older players while still fostering a competitive, team-based setting.

“Our oldest player in the league recently turned 90 years old,” says Michele Clark, deputy director of the Granny Basketball League. “Younger gals who are joining the fun likely have had more opportunity to play basketball in their youth, but not all did. For the older gals, some did not have a local girls’ basketball program available so never had a chance to play, or some might have had a few intramural games. Meanwhile, some lucky players had a robust basketball experience growing up in their local communities.

Our league brings together people of all abilities. What’s nice about the old-style, six-on-six rules of Granny Basketball is that nearly anyone can play.”

Clark, who began playing in Missouri and subsequently brought the league to Kansas when she moved to the Topeka area, says its implementation in Kansas could not have happened without the help of the local park and recreation department staff. “I approached Lawrence Parks and Recreation, and they connected me with Gayle Sigurdson,” says Clark. “We conducted a series of learn-to-play events in summer of 2015. That fall, we formed our very first Kansas Granny Basketball team.”

According to Gayle Sigurdson, lifelong recreation programmer for Lawrence Parks and Recreation, one of the benefits of the league is the inclusivity of the program. “Granny Basketball emphasizes safety in a competitive environment, expanding the number of people to which it appeals,” says Sigurdson. “I have shared the opinion with people that the 1920s rules we play by were not fair to young female athletes but are perfect for older adults.”

And, Clark says, one of the best aspects of the league are the connections built. “You think you’re just going to be playing basketball,” says Clark, “but what you don’t realize is how many friends you’re going to make, how much fun you’re going to have and all of the unique opportunities that you’ll have.” One of the connections Clark has made through her experience with the league is Sigurdson. “Gayle is a tall lady, and she’d never played basketball before. If you saw her, you wouldn’t think that would be the case.

But, she’s now our team captain, and she’s wonderful. She’s very inclusive and a great communicator. In fact, she’s bubbled up as our lead coordinator with all of our Kansas teams.”

The benefits don’t stop at the participating individuals. “I think the whole community has benefitted from Granny Basketball,” says Sigurdson. “The older community includes players, but also fans who are energized by watching their peers compete. Our children, grandchildren and student athlete volunteers see role models that may change their views of aging.”

– Lindsay Collins, Associate Editor of Parks and Recreation magazine

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