City Starts Reimagining Parks System

A public-private funding structure. A ​“superintendent of fields.” A department divided into geographical districts, each with a point person for neighbors to contact. 

Those ideas are all on the table as the city moves forward with a plan to un-merge the Parks and Public Works Department.

About 50 people heard that update from Mayor Justin Elicker and the Urban Resources Initiative (URI) at the Q House last week.

The public meeting Wednesday night marked the latest step of an effort to restructure how local government manages about a hundred city parks — three years after Elicker’s first attempt at that restructuring.

In 2020, the Elicker Administration successfully submitted a budget proposal to split up what was then the city’s Parks, Recreation, and Trees Department. The city merged the ​“parks and trees” half of that department with the Public Works Department, while combining the ​“recreation” half with the Youth Department. 

In the ensuing years, the newly-fused Parks and Public Works department has faced criticism from ​“Park Friends” groups, Parks Commissioners, and mayoral challengers who have argued that city parks have been neglected as a result.

Now, Elicker said on Wednesday, he plans to propose splitting the city’s parks and public works staff into separate departments for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2024 – 25 budget. The city granted URI, a Yale-affiliated environmental non-profit, a $17,000 contract to solicit public feedback on the Parks Department’s future organizational structure. Wednesday’s community dialogue marked the final step before URI submits a report to the city about the best steps forward next week.

On Wednesday, URI presented a set of recommended short, medium, and long-term goals — from ​“improve external communications” to ​“develop internal plan to address inequity.” (The vast majority of Wednesday’s attendees appeared to be white.)

URI also proposed a few potential structural elements for the future parks department. 

The first idea would be to split the parks staff into geographic zones ​“with dedicated staff working in a zone,” explained URI Director Colleen Murphy Dunning. She noted that Minneapolis, Asheville, and Portland follow this model.

“It’s what we heard from everyone,” Murphy Dunning said. A potential drawback, she said, is that ​“this would require more staffing” — and far more city funds.

Later on in a small-group discussion, parks caretaker Janice Parker pointed out that city park employees are already divided into four geographical zones. She said that there’s just not enough resources for the teams to robustly focus on their own districts.

URI also proposed bolstering public-private partnerships to incorporate funding from outside sources.

Murphy-Dunning laid out multiple ways this could take shape: more organizations focused on individual parks, like the Edgerton Park Conservancy or the Town Green Proprietors; formalizing the maintenance responsibilities and fundraising capacity of existing Parks Friends Groups; and/or bringing in a private organization to help fund and govern the parks system as a whole, perhaps modeled after the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy.

Public-private partnerships ​“could start to address gaps in services,” Murphy-Dunning said. ​“There could be union issues with some of this.”

After URI’s presentation, Elicker offered his initial thoughts on their proposals.

He said he envisions combining aspects of the various models that URI proposed — especially the idea of a more formal division of the city into a handful of park districts. 

Elicker said he is considering hiring a liaison in each district to attend community management team meetings and Parks Friends groups, serving as an equivalent of the Livable City Initiative’s neighborhood specialists or the police department’s district managers.

He also suggested adding a ​“Superintendent of Fields” position to the department, as he said he heard from sports field users across the city that the fields should be better maintained.

And he said he hopes to work toward opening park-based bathrooms for more substantial hours.

These proposals ​“are not finalized,” he stressed — partly because the city has to weigh other priorities for how to spend its limited budget.

“You all care a lot about parks, and I do too,” he said. ​“There’s another room of people who care about gun violence. There’s another room of people who care about homelessness.” 

He urged meeting attendees to show up to the Board of Alders’ public hearings on the budget in the spring to voice their ideas for city parks.

Soon, attendees divided into small-group discussions to provide their feedback on the ideas presented.

The idea of an umbrella ​“Park Friends” group — merging the volunteer groups that tend to individual parks across the city so that cleanup efforts and volunteer activities can be more coordinated — garnered a lot of support.

Doreen Abubakar, who founded the Community Placemaking Engagement Network that tends to Newhallville’s Learning Corridor, said that New Haven’s more affluent and white neighborhoods tend to have more capacity for robust Park Friends volunteer groups. ​“The Friend Groups could get some money from the city,” she suggested, to ensure that resources are distributed more evenly across different neighborhoods.

The idea of private funding also gained traction. ​“We’re missing out on so many opportunities to get money,” said a participant who identified himself as David.

Climate change activist Zach Pinemaker said that private stewardship groups could be effective, but they could also ​“gatekeep decision making.” He stressed a need to ​“stay away from closed doors.”