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