On the night of October 18th, 2017, I attended a Recreation Commission meeting at Piedmont City Hall with six or seven other students, a concerned father and a councilwoman in attendance. The Commission meets monthly to discuss issues pertaining to recreation within the City of Piedmont. The first issue discussed was the election of the new Chair of the Commission. The Commission casually and unanimously elected the Acting Chair, Vice Chair, Steve Roland as Chair and Commissioner Carrie Graham Lee as Vice Chair.
After an introduction, time was allotted for people to speak about issues not on the agenda. I was the only person from the audience that spoke during this time. For some reason, I was extremely nervous, and I stumbled over many of my words at first. I proposed a program in which part-time high school and college Recreation Department employees could sign up and receive internship opportunities that relate to their employment. For example, a lifeguard could intern at the Fire Department or a paramedic company. They responded mostly by smiling and nodding respectfully.
The meeting took a more serious and professional turn when addressing the third issue on the agenda, tennis. Recreation Director Sarah Lillevand did most of the speaking during the remainder of the meeting. She first addressed updates for the tennis courts in Piedmont, including plans for maintenance and repair. Director Lillevand addressed the public tennis courts near the Municipal Swimming Pool used by the Piedmont High School tennis program , stating that they would receive a resurfacing, among other improvements. These renovations would occur either in a tight window during winter or a two week window in May after PHS Tennis season was over.
After a brief questioning by the Commission, Lillevand moved on to Schoolmates, the most discussed issue on the agenda. She began by reading out many summary stats, such as financial changes, attendance and time slots available. Lillevand explained that even after fee increases, revenue was down 30% and participation was down 36% compared with the same 9 week period last year.
After this brief introduction, Lillevand moved on to the most important topic within the Schoolmates discussion: the 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. time slot. Since Kindergarten changed from a staggered start for a morning session and an afternoon session, to a uniform 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. kindergarten schedule, the morning hour was no longer needed by the kindergarteners, who had previously been the bulk of kids enrolled during that hour. Now, the question is whether or not to keep that hour; the only kids who are even eligible to attend are first grade late readers. It would be extremely cost inefficient to have two full time employees overseeing at most 4 or 5 children during that hour (There has to be at least two employees at the same time). Some parents rely heavily on this hour, however, and the loss of the time slot would be devastating to them. The Commission gave no solutions, only promised to continue discourse on the subject in the future.
Next was the issue of Schoolmates coverage during Parent/Teacher conference week arose. School lets out around noon every day for that whole week, however Schoolmates doesn’t offer hours until 2 p.m. Director Lillevand told the Commission that the solution is a Conference Week Camp that runs from around noon to 3 p.m, after which the regular Schoolmates would start again. This camp would be more expensive than normal Schoolmates, and would require Schoolmates to hire private contractors to help with the camp.
In response, a father expressed his concerns with this program, and with Schoolmates in general. His main point was that he was concerned with community outreach within Schoolmates and the Recreation Department, as a whole. He claimed the private contractors needed for this camp would create a divide between the Schoolmates program and the community. The Commission recognized his concerns, and told him that they would make sure the contractors were compatible with the community, and would continue to reach out to the community.
In my opinion, the Recreation Department does an excellent job with community outreach, at least within the Aquatics Department.
After a long discussion on Schoolmates, the Commission changed gears and began discussing renovations of Recreation sites around Piedmont. Lillevand explained that the renovation projects for the Aquatics Facility, Veteran’s Hall, Beach Playfield and Coach’s Field are all still in the planning phase and there is no new information on the projects.
The meeting concluded with a brief discussion about the almost completed renovation of Hampton Field. Overall, the Commission is very happy with the new field, tennis courts and basketball courts.
After the meeting, I interviewed a fellow audience member who would rather remain anonymous. The concerned citizen attended the meeting “to receive updates on the pool facility renovations,” the same reason I chose to attend the meeting. In order to keep himself updated, this concerned citizen will attend next month’s meeting.
by Robbie Alazraqui, Piedmont High School Senior
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On October 18, 2017, I attended a Recreation Commission meeting. The Commission consists of 5 commissioners, a Chair, and a Vice Chair, who all oversee public parks, sports, and recreational programs (Schoolmates, camps). They hold their meetings monthly in City Hall and they focus on many different issues around mainly Piedmont youth. The audience is able to give their opinion on any issue being discussed on the agenda by giving the Chair of the Recreation Commission a speaker card with their name and what number on the agenda they wanted to comment on.
They began their session by doing a “Call to Order,” where the Vice Chair opened the session by stating who was present, the time, and banging the gavel. It is usually the Chair’s job to call the meeting to order, but the previous Chair had stepped down in the time between the last session and the current one, so the duty was left to Steve Roland, the Vice Chair.
They then moved into the Public Forum, which lasts ten minutes, where anyone in the audience could voice their opinion on an issue not on the agenda. One of my peers, Robbie, was the only member of the audience to give his opinion at this time.
After the Forum closed, they moved on to their “Regular Agenda.” Because of the vacant spot of Chair of the Recreation Commission, the first thing on the agenda was to elect a new Chair. They voted unanimously on election of Steve Roland, the current Vice Chair, to become Chair. This left a spot open for a new Vice Chair, and Carrie Graham Lee was voted unanimously, as well, to fill that role. They then approved their last meeting’s minutes (September).
The next item on the agenda was an update from the Tennis Subcommittee, where the director of the Piedmont Recreation Department, Sara Lillevand, spoke on behalf of the Recreation Department. She talked about proposed maintenance on the PRD tennis courts and explained that the Department wanted to repair a cracked wall, as well as extending fences between courts to limit tennis balls from entering other courts. She had a preliminary meeting with contractors on an estimate and hopes to be finished with the project by the time NCS rolls around because PHS usually hosts multiple games between the men’s and women’s teams. She will be briefing the Recreation Commission further at the next meeting.
The Recreation Commission then transitioned to an update on Schoolmates, the daycare for kids who attend the elementary schools, where Lillevand again took the lead. The issue was that Schoolmates was not having enough participation this year and they were struggling to keep their full-time staff. The reason for this was that, for the last 15+ years, kindergarteners at Havens, Beach, and Wildwood Elementary Schools would spend half of their day in school and, as needed, the other half at Schoolmates. This year, however, the hours for kindergartens shifted to 9 a.m.-2 p.m., leaving Schoolmates in a bad spot. Schoolmates is not limited to just kindergarteners, but that is where their largest participation is.
The Recreation Department first tried to increase fees for families to pay for staff, who are beloved on their respective campuses, but that is not a sustainable method. Even though the school year has just recently started, participation is down 31% from last year. She says that their 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. and 7:30am-8:30am slots have not changed in participation, but the middle of the day is where the drop happens, because there are no more kindergarteners there.
A Commissioner then had the idea to use teacher aides for the in-between hours if needed, but Lillevand would like to keep the full-time staff on if that is a possibility. Then the newly elected Vice Chair, Carrie Graham Lee, asked what would happen during weeks like parent-teacher conference week, if Schoolmates would not have full-time staff working. Lillevand responded by saying that Camps during that week could be an option, although not nearly as cheap for families as Schoolmates.
They then concluded that portion of the meeting and left it open to the public. My speaker card was read and I went up to the podium and told the members that having full-time staff at Schoolmates is so important to the community because they have such a positive impact on kids and that anything they could do to keep staff on at Schoolmates would have a lot of support from the community and myself.
I chose to comment on Schoolmates because it was the most personal to me as I absolutely loved hanging out with Michael and David at the Havens Schoolmates when I was in Kindergarten. I still talk to them sometimes and they have always remembered who I am and ask me how my parents and siblings are doing, even though I have not been to Schoolmates in 12 years. They are truly dedicated to the town and are such a huge part of so many young kids lives in Piedmont, so that is why I felt I needed to try and support them by voicing my opinion.
The final items on the Regular Agenda were on a couple of Master Planning projects. The Commissioners did not show the actual Master Plans for the items discussed, it seemed to have been discussed in a previous meeting. They went over plans for new aquatics facilities, where Councilwoman Teddy King spoke about a poll sent out to Piedmont citizens about the new aquatic facilities. She did not specify what they were as well.
They transitioned to the Master Plans for the Recreation Department and Veteran’s Hall. The City wants to remodel them to make them more marketable.
They then moved onto the Master Plans for Beach and Coaches Fields. Planning will be engaged on November 16, 2017. The last Master Plan they covered was Hampton Field. Because it is nearly complete, they only talked about finishing signage. Lillevand said that in total it was a two million dollar remodel, with $ 800,000 of that coming from private donors.
They finished their meeting with some announcements. The most important being that Haunted House tickets are now being bought prior to the event, online. Lillevand made the change this year because she believes cash is inefficient, as it does not always get to where it needs to go.
Chair Roland then adjourned the meeting by hitting the gavel.
Following the meeting, I talked to Jeffrey Dorman, a newly appointed Recreation Commissioner. He chose to be on the Recreation Commission because he “had gotten involved with the Piedmont Soccer Club, and also have had kids in Recreation programs.” He believes that “having a background from the Soccer Club,’’ he “could help out especially as it relates to fields and field usage.” Since joining the Recreation Commission, he has learned that it is “way more broad and diverse than I had originally thought, it’s not all about sports, it’s also about tons of educational programs, especially programs for little kids; you don’t even realize.” He talked about how he has dealt a lot with people who want something and then the opposite side of people, who want the opposite. I try to make decisions for the best interests of the town.” He has enjoyed his time on the Commission and hopes to continue as a member for the foreseeable future.
I never knew that things like this existed in our town, and, honestly, I thought the meeting was fascinating. It hit close to home with Schoolmates, and I was excited to hear all the new changes to come for this town. I thought it was very cool to hear about Hampton Field because it is very nice now, and I use it quite a bit. As a student, it is great to hear about what is going on around you in your town and I am very glad this project was assigned.
by Conner Weber, Piedmont High School Senior
