The Resident
News
New foundation set to help San Jose parks
By Stephen Baxter
Following success in other cities, a nonprofit group is set to launch in September to improve San Jose's park and recreation system.
San Jose Recreation Superintendent Neil Rufino and San Jose Repertory Theatre co-founder James Reber have quietly been meeting with a parks foundation steering committee since fall 2008, and Reber is waiting for state filing papers be accepted this fall. He said the San Jose Parks Foundation would be independent of the city and help fund programs from a parks department wish list. He has about half of his 15-member board of directors assembled.
"I want to find people who share a vision for all park space as one entity," Reber said. The quality of San Jose's parks and recreation services are important, Reber said, because they are "our garden, our front yard, where our children go for walks. ... It's a respite from everyday workaday life, so it serves everyone."
Park foundations have operated for decades in cities from San Francisco to Chicago and New York, and they have facilitated donations from corporations and individuals to park and recreation projects.
San Jose parks officials said the nascent foundation is part of a wider strategy to keep its services sustainable in light of recent budget cuts. The department has begun to raise fees for swimming, classes and other services, and it is working with companies such as Adobe to expand Adopt-a-Park efforts.
The budget for the city's Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services has fallen from about $70 million in 2007-08 to $62 million in 2009-10, according to city documents. The most recent budget eliminated 10 management positions in the department and at least two landscapers who used to care for branch libraries, fire stations and other city facilities.
Because of dwindling maintenance of trees and sidewalks across the city, a spokeswoman for Mayor Chuck Reed said in August that she hoped businesses would form improvement districts just to keep weeds in check.
"We're looking at a lot of different strategies," said Neil Rufino, San Jose's recreation supervisor.
Rufino said he met with leaders of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in San Francisco, which was founded in 1981 and paid for more than $16 million in park improvements and community programs in 2008. Similarly, the San Francisco Parks Trust has worked with that city's Recreation and Parks Department since 1971 and has facilitated projects from renovating playgrounds to a multi-year program that has raised $25 million to restore the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers.
The trust acts as the fiscal agent for park-specific donations to the city of San Francisco, and its $6.8 million budget has supplemented that city's park and recreation budget in repairing and painting some high-use recreation centers.
The new San Jose Parks Foundation hopes to do similar work and guide donations for projects and services. It hopes to raise $500,000 in the next 12 months, and its steering committee has indicated that it does not want that money spent on park maintenance.
Committee members would rather fund programs for youth and seniors, which could potentially free city officials to take on more mundane, but important, projects like installing bathrooms in neighborhood parks.
"I'm not sure that a lot of our parks have been built out to the scope that they were envisioned," Rufino said.
The foundation's steering committee has included Helen Chapman of the Shasta Hanchett Neighborhood Association and Leslee Hamilton, executive director of the Friends of Guadalupe River Park and Gardens.
The foundation likely would allow residents to become members and join a more organized formal volunteer corps, and a website is expected to be launched soon.
"We'd love to have the foundation kick off in the fall," Rufino said.