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Message
From the President:
Joe Gibson,
Conejo Recreation & Park
District
April 1 , 2008
I sit here this evening wondering what it will take to get our legislators in Sacramento to wake up and realize that all government is local. I seem to remember that quote from an influential law maker from back east.
Local governments, including park districts, provide real services to real people. We deal with day-to-day problems that affect peoples' lives. As park districts, we offer residents in our communities a place to escape the daily stress – gas prices, housing foreclosures, the war in Iraq, and many other global and national issues.
As local government, we rely on certain standards of practice, one of which should be a stable financial position by the legislature, to maintain our service levels. When we cannot provide services because of budgets cuts, we can retreat from our constituents and must face them everyday as neighbors and members of our communities.
As such it is important that we as park districts impress upon or legislators the important role we play and why they need to support us. The CARPD Board is agreed that we must increase our visibility and dialogue with our legislators, and as such, we are strongly suggesting that our member districts host their local state senator and assembly persons with a “Day in the Park”. We suggest that this spring and summer, each District invite their local legislators and their staff to one of their parks, provide them lunch, and have the local district staff initiate dialogue on the services we provide and the struggles we face.
As a follow on to this, CARPD will be hosting a “Day in the Park” in Sacramento for the legislators and their chiefs-of-staff this summer to do the same. Again, all politics is local and we need to start, or if you have already started, continue, dialogue with our local legislators to let them know what we do and that our constituents are their constituents.
On another note, our annual meeting will be occurring April 17 to 20 in Monterey. I hope that you join us for what is promising to be an exciting conference. CARPD has been working to assist park and recreation districts statewide for 50 years. Let’s start planning the next 50 years together.
Respectfully,Joe Gibson, CARPD President
CARPD California Association of Recreation & Park Districts, P.O. Box 22671, Sacramento, CA 95822
916-446-2098 | 800-773-7275 | Fax 916-446-6095 | calrpds@aol.com
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