First of two reports on last night’s VLPRA steering committee received today. -jsq

If you attended any of the CUEE meetings the format was exactly the same. We were divided into groups. Each person wrote down their answers to a list of questions they handed out. Then each group was told to combine their answers into a group list which was written on poster size dry erase sheets. Then the sheets were displayed on the wall in front of all the groups & the answers were discussed. I had to leave when they were discussing the answers to the first question which was: List the 5 things you think are most important to improve the parks & recreation program. I am assuming the group lists were combined into a master list for that question. They were doing each question all the way through before going to the next question. I brought the list of questions with me intending to share what they were but I left my notebook in the car trunk of the person I was riding with & forgot to get it when we left the Law Enforcement Appreciation Dinner. I will not retrieve the notebook until Tuesday, but if you want to know the questions I will send them to you then. If you want more info in the meantime Karen Noll was there also. She came late & probably stayed the entire time. We had interesting discussions at our group table & I’m sure a lot of interesting subjects were covered. However,

I don’t think the committee’s input amounts to a hill of beans to the outcome. Lose & Company consultants have been meeting with the VLPRA employees & authority for two days prior to today & my guess is they already decided what they intend to put into the proposed plan. Its like CUEE & the T-Splost meetings where they explain what they want to do, allow questions & discussions, but public input is just a matter of being able to say the public was consulted in a public meeting. It will be interesting to hear what they come up with when they report their determined plans to us in the meeting to be announced. The ones who stayed til the end today will be able to tell us if they think the discussed contributions from the committee had any relevance to the final plans.

I plan to start attending all VLPRA meetings. I sort of got sidetracked with the consolidation meetings, but I intend to get back to that project now. I asked Mr. Page when the next Authority meeting is & he said 2/29 at 4:30 if you want to attend. Our group & at least one other group seemed concerned about competition between P&R and the Boys & Girls Club. It will be interesting to hear how the authority addresses that issue since I know that money designated for P&R was passed through the Downtown Development Authority to the Boys & Girls Club when they were building the new facility in addition to other grant monies they received. My guess is P&R will try to turn youth sports over to the Boys & Girls Club to counter the competition issues. I also know they are intending to partner with the YMCA for youth sports & other recreation related issues. JC Cunningham is on the VLPRA authority & he did not realize the city had a partnership with the Boys & Girls Club relative to the new facility. Members on the Boys & Girls Club board have argued with me that the city does not have any connection with the club, but they have a 25 year lease agreement with the club relative to the funding for the new facility. Seems like there needs to be more light shined on a lot of things going on because people that should know don’t know.

-Barbara Stratton

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