With the budget crunch mechanism at full-throttle, city departments are officially stomping their feet and screaming like banshees to draw down their “fair share” of both the operations and capital improvement money wagon. The library wants a million dollars to improve electrical outlets — people can trip over them, don’t you know — so to convert the small standing fixtures, (most of which are actually near walls or in corners), and make them flush with the floor, they want a million dollars.
I’m laughing. I don’t know whether to laugh or throw up, but I’m laughing. The next phase would be to make homeless people flush with the floor, so that we don’t trip over them.
In the Parks and Rec department, things are even twice as crazy. Maybe four, five times — it’s hard to say. Parks is where so much happens. We’ve got the pottery lab, where old folks can make cylindrical clay pipes for sale at the marijuana dispensaries; we’ve got dance classes — you can be a big hairy guy wearing a tutu and be embraced by all because guys in tutus are perfectly welcome here; we’ve got a reservoir where you can take a leisurely snooze on a summer’s day — provided you wear ear plugs, because the noise made by the high-powered gas-fueled ski boats is probably not going to induce relaxation. We’ve got so much…and yet not enough.
It might be worth noting how many executives work in the Parks and Rec department. We’ve got a “Director”, two “Assistant Directors”; then we’ve got a “Parks and Planning Superintendent”, then there’s the “Recreation Superintendent”; mustn’t forget the “Business and Finance Manager” — very important in a big department. Oh, yeah, almost forgot…there’s the “Policy and Information Services Manager” — ooh, yeah, and also…the “City Parks Manager” and the “Planning Manager”. There actually are a few more to add to this list, a few “Deputy Such-and-Suches”, stuff like that. So is there a problem with them needing more money? I mean come on…there are a lot of hungry mouths that need feeding here, which is what good government is all about, right?
One might take exception to at least some of the doings in the Parks and Rec department. For one thing, in 2008 they presented a timeline for a “Boulder reservoir master plan” process that would include a one-year process taking up all of 2009. They held meetings, they had forums, they solicited feedback from the shore birds to see if they really do feel endangered…
and then what? Oof, they goofed on the timeline. Seems they needed two years to do the process. So, without anyone accepting accountability for making the change from a one-year to a two-year process, they just went ahead and did that, thus ensuring that no new ideas for use of the reservoir would be enacted against the interests of anyone defending the old ideas, the ones in place over the past 20-some years of “master plan” delays.
Regarding the motors-on-water issue, some residents believe that the motor boats are necessary financially. However, even with a two-year master plan process, the department has not come up with a balance sheet to show how much personnel dollars go into taking care of the motorized boats. There’s security, there’s also been increased police costs due to BUI’s, additional cleaning and monitoring of the boats to try and ward off zebra mussels, a danger to the res which could easily boost water treatment costs by a hundred grand or more. The truth is, no matter what anyone else tells you, the parks and rec staff has a motor boat fetish and they want to keep things status quo, even though the general trend around the nation, the world and even Colorado, is to begin erring on the side of safety when it comes to drinking water supplies. Of course, our water utility managers are asking more money for that, to prepare in the event the parks and rec managers don’t know what they’re doing by demanding every high-impact recreational nickel they can squeeze out of the res.
What a racket. When the parks people need money, all they have to do is recruit somebody designing clay bongs, or maybe a handicapped water skier, and bingo!, the money shows up. By the way, I’m applying for the position of “Chief Mascot”, or maybe “Superintendent of Mascots”. Just let me recruit my own prairie dog deputies, and with a few years of paid master-planning, we’ll come up with some hot, new programs: “BMX’ing for Seniors!”, “Parkour For Granny!”
I can definitely feel a trend coming on.
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Rob Smoke is not afraid to admit he was once a Commissioner of Human Relations for the City of Boulder.

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