Parks and rec, Sonoma-style, gets council attention

Most cities have a Parks & Recreation Department, coordinating and promoting playground activities, fitness and crafts classes, and overseeing facilities from pocket parks to swimming pools. The popularity of the long-running NBC series “Parks and Recreation” attests to that, a sort of satiric civic spin-off of “The Office.”

Not so in Sonoma: as far as anyone recalls, the city never had such a department—though there’s no shortage of things to do in town, at least in normal times. And when we do get back to normal, there’ll once again be bocce competitions, tai chi courses, softball leagues, senior cooking classes and dance studios.

Those and many other activities are already available in Sonoma, and some of them continue even now. The challenge has been finding out about all of them, coordinating their programs, and getting the community engaged.

Leave it to an “alcaldessa” to make something happen. Karen Collins, the city’s “honorary mayor” for 2019, used her term in part to focus the city on consolidating these activities. “I actually had been thinking about this for some time” due to her long-standing interest and involvement in recreation, including her former roles as deputy director of California State Parks, commissioner of Sonoma County Regional Parks and board member of Jack London Park Partners.

Though she insists, “My alcaldessa role really didn’t have anything to do with it.” Rather, it was her seat on the Measure M Citizens Oversight Committee, representing the City of Sonoma, appointed by Supervisor Susan Gorin. So she went to the City Council on Sept. 16, 2019, to urge city officials to take advantage of newly available Measure M funds (from an one-eighth-cent sales tax for county parks) and the possibility of money from Proposition 68 (also passed in 2018, a $4 billion bond measure with parks and outdoor access among its provisions).

Collins encouraged the council to appoint a citizens group to take a look at the City’s offerings in recreation, and how they might be better managed and possibly expanded to take advantage of the opportunity. The city council agreed, and handed it over to Collins and city staffers to develop.

Though Collins said interest remained strong, “because of fires, pandemic, homelessness crisis, etc., etc., city staff has not been able to get to it” between October 2019 and October 2020, when at a quarterly city council agenda planning meeting, City Councilmember Amy Harrington asked to revive the topic at an upcoming meeting, with the Community Services and Environment Commission to provide oversight and take an advisory role.

Thus it was a full 15 months before the outlines of that plan were presented to the council at its Dec. 14 meeting by City Manager Cathy Capriola, events manager Lisa Janson and, in absentia at least, Karen Collins – to the wholly supportive five council members. The purpose was to launch Phase 1 of a multi-year Recreation and Park Work Plan, including the appointment of a Community Recreation and Parks Task Force that would, for the time being at least, do the job of a parks and rec department.

Measure M funds were not an insignificant amount – more than $1 million over the course of the 10-year tax span coming directly to Sonoma. The tax’s revenue is divided between the county and the nine incorporated cities; while the county itself gets two-thirds of the funds, the jurisdictions split the other third between them (according to their relative population), with Sonoma getting just over 3 percent.

That would mean, at current estimates, $118,612 a year, to be used by the city for maintaining trails and parks, even building new ones; improving public recreation facilities such as playgrounds, sports fields and picnic areas; and offering recreation, education and health programs in parks as well.

Collins proposed that the City of Sonoma use the funds to build a parks and rec program from its existing components—the partnerships with nonprofits that were cultivated following withdrawal of state re-development funds in 2012.

Those partners include the so-called “tier 1” non-profits, which benefit from grant or other support from the city to provide their services to residents. Current Tier 1 nonprofits include the Vintage House (for senior-related services), the Sonoma Community Center (for arts and crafts classes), the Sonoma Ecology Center (for its community garden and other initiatives) and the Boys & Girls Club (for youth activities), all the sorts of activities that parks and rec departments generally coordinate.

Add to these the Sebastiani Theatre Foundation, the Sonoma Valley Health & Recreation Association (Sonoma Splash), the Field of Dreams, and Sonoma Overnight Support (SOS) also providing relevant programs, and it’s clear Sonoma already has a multiple entities providing recreation services. The city’s only role currently is to maintain the park facilities.

But at the city council’s fall agenda-setting meeting, Capriola prepared a presentation to the council. “We have taken Karen’s original idea and added components to make this a multi-year staged work plan,” said Capriola.

“The first project is to create an inventory of the recreation and parks programs in the city/valley and to then build a ‘digital catalogue’ – a one-stop shop for all things parks and recreation for the community,” said Capriola. While many communities publish a parks and recreation catalog twice a year, going online with a digital or virtual catalogue gained the nod from the Zoom-enabled councilmembers.

She referenced the click-through “Wine Experience and Gift Guide” of the Sonoma Valley Vintners and Growers Association, at sonomavalleywine.com.

To oversee the project, it was agreed that the Community Services and Environment Commission would oversee the recreation assessment that Collins had proposed. The CSEC was recognized as the appropriate city agency to workshop the idea, as that commission’s mandate is to “(advise) the City Council on matters related to the preservation and enhancement of parks, recreational facilities, open space and the natural environment and reviews major Plaza Use applications.”

Fred Allebach, currently the chair of the CSEC, agreed the commission is “absolutely the right venue to oversee how Measure M funding is spent by the city, this aligns perfectly with the CSEC mission.” He did caution, however, that while the commission can provide oversight, it is the city council that makes decisions. “Certainly the CSEC has the capacity to thoughtfully vet staff and consultant reports and provide advice. The rubber meets the road however, with the electeds, the council.”

This city council did respond enthusiastically, and gave the go-ahead to the multi-year Recreation and Parks Work Plan at its Dec. 14 meet, while approving $20,000 in general funds to get the ball rolling. “I don’t know if she’s online, but I’m sure Karen Collins right now is doing a happy dance,” said Madolyn Agrimonti.

Whether or not a separate Parks and Recreation Department would be necessary in the long run is a question that probably won’t be answered until Phase 3, the “benchmark assessment” of the multi-year Recreation and Parks Work Plan the council approved at its Dec. 14 meeting. Phase 1 is an inventory and analysis of what the city has to offer, and establish a task force to oversee and advise the project; Phase 2 is working on current park projects in process.

The first phase awaits the nomination of its task force members, which was one of the last things the retiring Capriola did before handing over the job to Interim City Manager David Kiff, who takes over in January. Also on the task force will be Lisa Janson to work as project manager, and Collins herself to serve as chair.

Capriola already sent out the invitations to her selected task force members before the end of the year, and though the names won’t be announced until mid- to late-January, she’s taken the lead on the nominations.

Capriola, for one, doesn’t think a parks and rec department will be necessary. “I believe that the City has a strong park and recreation program through our current contractual partnership with numerous non-profits which is cost effective, efficient and builds direct community support,” she told the Index-Tribune in an email. “This is a unique model that could be enhanced through this upcoming work plan.”

Collins concurs that a city department dedicated to parks and recreation may not be necessary. “I think we have some very good and strong pieces already in place. So, I don’t have any preconceived ideas regarding eventual outcome,” she said. “Let’s just see where our research/community input takes us.”

She added that, although she was unable to attend the virtual meeting on Dec. 14, “when I heard that it passed I did indeed do a happy dance. Madolyn was right. It seems like it’s been a long time coming.”

Email Christian at christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.