Park board clips skating at Brackett

BY DENNIS GEISINGER

Neighborhood kids Jesse and Brandon skate at Matthews Park. (Photo by Dennis Geisinger)

“The Brackett Park ice rink has been closed,” confirmed Scott Vreeland, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board District 3 Commissioner, in an interview with Southside Pride.

“The commissioners origginally considered closing one rink in each of its districts to kind of spread the pain around,” Vreeland said. “Somehow that got translated into closing two rinks in each manager’s district, and I only have the two rinks in my district—Brackett Park and Powderhorn.”

Ice rinks have also been closed at Shingle Creek, Harrison, Waite and Loring parks. The ice rink at Powderhorn was spared because, according to Vreeland, “The Powderhorn folks yelled the loudest. Plus, I think that because of some of the demographics and conditions of the neighborhood, Powderhorn may be more essential to lives of its residents,” Vreeland said.

According to Vreeland, the Minneapolis City Council and Board of Estimate and Taxation did not support requests for additional capital or operating expenses. That option of using Neighborhood Revitalization Project money was also eliminated because its funding has also been greatly diminished. Substantial annual property tax increases and the local ramifications of statewide “no new taxes” decisions also came into play, said Vreeland.

Financial constraints have forced the Park Board to increase fees at the same time as cutting back services.

“We’re charging people a lot more in user fees and that can be very painful,” said Vreeland. “Especially since folks have been so forthcoming—offering to pay more taxes and volunteer their time—because they love their parks,” he said.

Fee increases for renting picnic shelters, for outdoor weddings and for off-leash dog park permits were approved at the Board’s Dec. 12 meeting. Bumped-up park usage fees could hit nonprofit events particularly hard. Threats by some groups to take their business to other cities led to a decision to increase event fees gradually, but even in total would not fix the entire budget shortfall.

“We had a $2 million dollar hole in funding services,” according to Vreeland. “Keeping the ice rinks open has been a very expensive endeavor. We had to ask, ‘how many people are using the rinks?’ ” he said.

“Rinks haven’t shown to be a cost effective activity for parks. There’s not a good cost to benefit ratio,” Vreeland continued. “Frankly, there’s been less people skating every year,” he said.

“Outdoor rinks are becoming less and less viable,” Vreeland continued. “One example of an out-of-proportion expense is worker’s comp payments. We’ve had more people get hurt setting up heavy rink walls than the forest service has had for guys with chain saws climbing trees,” said Vreeland.

And just holding together the services that the Park system still maintains means putting more and more of its money into upkeep of aging buildings and equipment. According to the Board’s 2007 Comprehensive Plan, much of the park system’s infrastructure was built in the 1960s and 1970s.

“The one thing that is not realized in this issue is capital,” said Vreeland. “The city is abandoning capital investment in neighborhood parks,” he said.

“The City Council determines capital funding for neighborhood parks,” said Vreeland. “We asked the City to increase the bite on taxpayers, they chose to not approve our vote to maintain our funding. Any infrastructure you have will go away in time unless you invest.”

“Despite a bridge collapsing and all the talk about public infrastructure, I still don’t see any change,” Vreeland said. “We have $319,000 this year going for the entire park system for replacement of capital infrastructure.”

“They have to make those decisions, whether to fund the parks or hire more cops,” concluded Vreeland. “I agree that we need cops, but if you take away city services like park facilities and park youth programs .…”