Open Minds Needed for Open Spaces

County and city voters have approved $1.5 billion in three initiatives for recreation, parks and open space capital projects. With this remarkable endorsement, political and community leaders now need to think creatively to fill parks and school playgrounds with children and families and strengthen neighborhoods.

Since 1982, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Youth Services and the city and county recreation and parks departments have reduced recreation budgets by 70%. Regardless of publicized efforts by the mayor to offer after-school recreational services, the facts are the LAUSD Youth Services budget dropped from $18 million to $5 million. Recreation programs at 50 high schools have been eliminated and programs at 500 middle and elementary schools have been curtailed. While user fees restored park services in middle-class and affluent communities, parks in poor neighborhoods have greatly suffered.

A recent UCLA report notes that 30% of Los Angeles’ youth live in poverty. Los Angeles is losing its children to the forces of negative recreation: gang-banging, drug use and drive-by killings.

The problems facing Genaro Cortez, a carpenter and father of six sons, illustrate the challenge facing city and county leadership. Cortez needed a field for a low-cost soccer league that he organized for 300 players and 21 teams. The fee of $35 per player filled a niche for poor children. The city responded by charging him a $1,200 permit for the use of the park. The Cortezes of our city are heroes. The city and county need to encourage citizen-organized recreation, provide technical assistance and ensure equity.

Other cities have understood that parks help anchor neighborhoods. Toronto and Boston have recognized the value of having parks separate residential and commercial space while providing neighborhood identity. Community centers in Toronto are managed by elected neighborhood citizen boards that supervise parks, playgrounds and libraries. In three years, Toronto’s Healthy Cities Program developed 500 public and private partnerships that now provide low-cost recreation and human services.

San Antonio’s Communities Organized for Public Services secured the support of the mayor, and in partnership with the school district and recreation and parks department designed an after-school program for 300,000 elementary school children. The city’s youth initiatives managers ensure that all youth services are coordinated; police and recreation departments work together to operate the programs.

In 1990, in the city of San Jose, recreation, parks, police, neighborhood associations and youth-serving agencies came together to revitalize at-risk neighborhoods. Parks were used to stabilize and beautify neighborhoods and extensive recreation services were offered to youth.

Last year, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley Jr., the Chicago park district and the school system created Park-Kids--an after-school academic-recreation camp. The camps are underwritten by the city; parents pay $5 a week and the program has grown to 70,000 youths.

Los Angeles needs to leverage its park money to improve neighborhoods and encourage citizen, nonprofit, private and public partnerships.

Genaro Cortez does not need to move his youth soccer league to San Jose, Toronto, Chicago or San Antonio. A little attention and creative planning is all that is needed to get things started.