Park District Board Faces Tough Decision on District Administrator Edmonds Fate
An Op-Ed Piece from the Publisher of the Rancho Cordova Post
On Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 6:30 pm the Cordova Recreation and Park District will be holding their Board of Directors meeting in building #2 at 2197 Chase Drive in Rancho Cordova. Among other items on the agenda is the performance evaluation of the District Administrator.
David Edmonds has been the District Administrator since October of 2007 when the City of Rancho Cordova urged a management change at the Cordova Recreation and Park District. At that time the then current District Administrator Greg Foell was placed on administrative leave and never did return to the post. David Edmonds was appointed interim District Administrator and later lost the interim title and has served in that position since.
Prior to the action by the CRPD Board of Directors the Rancho Cordova City Council members made the following statement, “We have serious concerns about the management of the district,” a letter signed by all five of the city council members said. “We believe the weaknesses of concern to our city are affecting park facilities district wide. Without significant management changes and improvement, we are concerned all the district’s parks will continue to lag.”
In expressing frustration with the CRPD management, council members at the time cited failure to achieve progress on the promised renovation of White Rock Park, continuing blight conditions at Federspiel Park, lack of a master plan and smaller projects which are funded by grants already in hand, such as renovation of the kitchen at the Cordova Senior Center.
Although the park district has been able to celebrate the grand opening on the regional Mather Sports Complex, they have yet to approve fees for use of the facility which has delayed community benefit and caused loss of revenue due to unscheduled events and tournaments. The District Administrator’s inability to follow prescribed procedures and properly manage the board agenda has caused a 5 month delay in approval.
One frustrated park district staff member stated, “I just found out that the vote has been postponed yet again. This is due to our Administrator neglecting to arrange a Policy Committee meeting, which is a necessary step prior to a vote on District Policy. The Policy Committee is comprised of two Board members, who after reviewing the proposed change, make a recommendation to the full Board, which will then discuss and vote. Apparently, this is the problem we have been having for a month or more. Everything is done on the staff end, and has been for some time.”
In addition to the inept handling of board agenda items the District Administrator has been unable to effectively direct staff in finding a suitable location for an off leash dog park. The Gone to the Dogs group which has worked diligently for over 5 years to raise funds to build the park has had their hopes of securing a location dashed twice, once by then Assistant District Administrator Edmonds and once again recently causing the group to publish an open letter to the community asking for support.
David Edmonds since his appointment has continued to make promises that have gone unfulfilled. The following is an excerpt from one of our previous articles in August of 2008.
David Edmonds explained that the CRPD had pooled all available resources to try and meet the goals of the parks master plan for the new 25 acre park in Anatolia, named Rancho Del Sol and located at intersection of Anatolia Drive and Justinian Way, but came up short. He explained that money for parks comes from developer fees, when they pull building permits, and not enough permits have been pulled by developers to fund the completion of all the master plan amenities.
The park district administrator stated that they are going to move forward with the first phase of the park development in the Spring of this year (2008). Edmonds stated in a town hall meeting in Anatolia that, “the first phase would include a softball/baseball complex with 2 lighted fields, 2 lighted tennis courts, 1 lighted basketball court, a group picnic area, multiple play areas including a water play feature, soccer fields, restrooms, concessions, along with a parking lot and small maintenance yard. Now six months after that statement (August 2008), no development work has been started.
It has been nearly a year, now June 2009, and no ground has been broken and the promised park is no closer to starting than it was 12 months ago in part due to David Edmonds inability to work with the developer AKT and in part by the mismanagement of CRPD funding.
The Cordova Recreation and Park District has some tough choices to make Wednesday night. It’s clear the District Administrator has failed the residents of Rancho Cordova and underperformed in his duties. Numerous residents have attempted to contact Mr. Edmonds only to receive slow responses and vague answers if any at all. The public has reached their tolerance for the incompetence displayed by Mr. Edmonds performance over the past year and deserves a fresh start.
This resident strongly urges the Park District Board of Directors to make the tough decision and vote for a clean start. Our residents demand more responsive, collaborative and open leadership at the helm of our parks. The residents of the district voted into office new CRPD leadership for a purpose. Now is the time for the park district Board of Directors to take the power into their own hands and make a change for the good of our city parks.
Our parks are the centerpiece of our connection to the community. Isn’t it time we renew our commitment to community, re-ignite our connections to other citizens, and reinvigorate the centers of our city. Save our parks!
Similar Posts:
- September 1, 2010 – Letter to the Editor:Theft and Administrator Misconduct at CRPD
- June 11, 2010 – Park District Moving Forward With Big Plans For White Rock Park
- August 9, 2010 – Join the Community for the White Rock Park Groundbreaking Ceremony
- August 24, 2010 – Community Comes Together for White Rock Park Groundbreaking
- June 10, 2010 – Rancho Cordova’s Team to Participate in All-America City Finals Competition
Short URL: http://www.ranchocordovapost.com/?p=3842
Posted by Geoffrey Sakala
on Jun 9 2009. Filed under Viewpoints.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Loading ...
We’ll see what happens. CRPD has received a ton of scrutiny from virtually all outside sources, but how they feel fabout the Administrator rom the inside will obviously be the key in tonight’s decision.
We’ve been following several complaints of the parks district over the past year and felt it was time to tie them into a coherent piece. No one can predict what the board members will do, nor will we know what’s said since its during closed session due to the nature of personnel matters.
It’s my understanding that the District is in need of more staff, so I doubt they would get rid of their top guy right now.
I ran for the CRPD Board with a promise to clean up the mess. At every forum during the campaign I preached over and over again that CRPD was in failure mode. The people spoke. They elected honorable individuals that did not have any background/experience with CRPD operations. I touched upon every subject mentioned above and in detail.
Nothing has changed. The whole operation is in failure mode. There needs to be a total bottoms up cleaning of all positions. Just adding a new Administrator to a time bomb will not get it done. We do not have board members who want to fix the problem. They are more interested in photo-ops.
David thanks for your comment and passion for the parks. Generally, a Board of Directors only hires/fires the head person and does not have oversight of any staff below that level. If any action is taken it would be a change at the District Administrator level.
I agree that the Board hires/fires Admin Officer; however, the Board can ask for a rationale behind the structure of the District. Why blindly approve a budget that includes many new worthless positions in it? The Board can make changes in the budget which would limit the waste of public funds.
In fact, in 2007 a consultant was hired to review the organization and concluded that the district was in failure mode. Thereafter, Mr. Foell was displaced. From my sources, there have been some worker suits against the district for bias and other things. The district is complicated and it needs strong leadership from both the Board and the Administrator to make it work. A weak Board could still hire another weak Administrator….what good is that?
A good Board of Directors simply makes decisions and votes yes or no with some direction on priorities. It’s the Administrator who builds the budget, determines staffing levels, negotiates park priorities and runs the day-to-day operations. I would argue that we don’t want a Board of Directors micro-managing the running our parks because they don’t have the experience nor the time to devote to it.
I am an active member of Gone to the Dogs. To my knowledge is has not been Dave Emonds that is the stumbling block to the Dog Park. I have been present at several of the last board meetings and it is the Board of Directors who can not commit to a location. There was a location picked out and approved by Dave Edmonds and a partial Board of Directors, that was cancelled by the entire Board. At the last board meeting, Mr. Edmonds was saying that he thought that he and the staff had found a new location and would be bringing it to us soon.Personally, I believe it is the Board of Directors that needs to be reviewed and perhaps replaced.
Shelia, you may be correct about the off leash dog park, but there have been numerous other issues which have not been handled well. A skilled and experienced District Administrator would be able to navigate these difficult issues and would not have nearly as many missteps along the way.
True, I dont know much about the other issues, but I do not want the Dog Park problem to be used agianst someone whom I believe has supported its presence. The Dog Park has enough negative press and feelings from various other indiviuals in the community, some who have strong ties to members of the Board of Directors.
I have to agree with some of these comments, especially that you do not want the present weak Board to micromanage the district because they do not have the tools to do it. So we get people to run for office that just want to sit and vote at meetings without a plan. I would argue that a strong Board would not have allowed the District to become so disfunctional. It is through the planning and guidance of the Board that the Administrator uses to act. No guidance or plan and you have mismanagement. That has been the status quo. So some argue that the Board is ineffective because they don’t have the experience nor the time to devote to it. That is a MAJOR problem and must be fixed by the people. So what makes you think that an unwise Board can select a new Administrator that will fix it all?
I’ve never said I thought the Board of Directors was weak, those are your words. My point is that Boards don’t run organizations, they advise, consult, vote, etc. It is the Board members job to have oversight on the performance of the District Administrator, the budget/finances, legal issues, and approve or reject the issues brought before them. A seasoned District Administrator knows how to build relationships with their Board members, their staff and the residents of the district which can lead to success. It’s hard to attribute organizational failure to a part-time Board who meets twice a month for a few hours. Would you blame the Board of Directors for the failures of GM, Chrysler, WAMU, Enron etc. No, it’s the CEO who runs the day-to-day operations that is ultimately responsible for the success or failure. If you argue that you disagree with the Board’s decisions on specific issues that is another case, but organizational failure lies solely in the hands of the person in charge of the daily operations.