01/22/1998 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Overview RECREATION: The down -sizing of office staff from three persons to two persons in the office of the Recreation Division of the Parks, Recreation & Forestry Department meant that office staff needed to discover how to streamline operations of the office, prioritize activities and sometimes change how things were being done. This was the challenge and one of the highlights of 1997. Staff worked for increased effectiveness and efficiency with modifications to planning, implementation, operations and administration of recreation programs. Staff worked diligently to ensure that the community felt little or no decrease of leisure recreation services. Some of the highlights reflect changes that were made in the implementation of leisure recreational services. PARKS: Park maintenance dealt with an increased rash of grafitti attacks to park buildings and facilities. Ramsey County had an increased amount of grafitti as well and established a Grafitti Task Force Unit. Park maintenance staff assisted the force by reporting and taking pictures of grafitti in attempts to identify patterns and persons responsible. Grafitti is a problem in parks because it is unattractive, requires a great amount of labor to eradicate and gives an impression that the parks are unsafe. For this reason it is the standard practice of the parks crew to remove grafitti as soon as it is detected. While most grafitti is removeable with varying degrees of work, grafitti on the old playground equipment (made before grafitti resistant plastics were developed) is almost impossible to remove. The parks had an increase in usage in 1997 with over 65 picnic shelter reservations for activities ranging from family reunions, class reunions, birthday parties, church picnics, company picnics to fundraising carnivals and tournaments. Athletic field usage was at peak demand as usual during weeknights. However, weekend days and evenings are many times unused largely because competitive teams are at weekend tournaments or players and their families are at cabins or on vacations. FORESTRY: Forestry programs continue to assist residents in the management of diseased trees and replacement of trees which have been removed due to diseases and natural disasters. Because of Mounds View's treasure of beautiful, mature trees, the Forestry program continues to be a service which is used by many residents of Mounds View. The Forestry Program continues to be a contracted service with the City of New Brighton for one day a week service even though the City Forester receives calls on a daily basis. CABLE TV: Cable TV continues to be a service which is increasingly gaining subscribers especially to the free City Government Access programs. The Cable TV Committee continues to put many hours of their time into the production of information programs in an effort to provide another vehicle for delivering communication and information to residents of the community.