Peter Share
To the Burbank City Council and the citizens of Burbank:
Why do you allow the Park and Recreation Department to operate with
such little accountability?
When I see the director of Park and Recreation, Mary Alvord, address
the council; you fawn over her like she were Mother Goose. I have never
seen the council say a critical word about her management of the
department.
A couple of years ago, when a children's theater group didn't pay its
rent (costing the city tens of thousands of dollars) nobody was held
accountable. Today, we have an after-school shuttle service for the
children -- "Got Wheels!" - with no accountability. I live on one of the
routes. I have watched these 20- to 30-passenger buses pass my house
hundreds of times. Empty!
Occasionally, there will be one or two kids on the bus. If there was
accountability, these buses could have been replaced with minivans. "Got
Wheels!" doesn't use tickets for a ride. Therefore, the only way you can
monitor ridership is by having the driver (who wants to keep his or her
job) to record the number of riders. Talk about your typical government
logic. Geez!
Alvord is paid a large salary; you should demand better
accountability. The last straw, that compelled me to write this letter,
is an insignificant straw unless you take into account the aforementioned
and you have high expectations of department heads. I refer to the cover
of the Spring 2000 Guide for the Park and Recreation Department.
I can recall a few months ago Alvord stood before the council beaming
with joy, telling of a group spending days and nights repairing the
trails in the local mountains. In her greeting for the guide, Alvord
highlights the cover.
The cover is a picture of 20 or 30 hikers walking up a section of
"washed out" trail. Having been a Boy Scout, and having hiked in our
hills, I can tell you from experience that, because of the type of soil
and the steepness of the washed out trail, it can be slippery as ice.
This kind of "washout" is easy to correct. You either pile rocks, lay
down a big log or dig a trench, diverting the runoff away from the trail.
Trail Maintenance 101!
It is obvious to me that whoever chose this picture for the cover
doesn't know thing one about hiking. It is also obvious that, based on
her highlighting of this picture, Alvord doesn't know either. And yet she
is the one who is supposed to be getting the new Stough Canyon Nature
Center (which includes the trails) into shape. The condition of that
trail is a disgrace!
But, will there be a call for accountability from any of you? I doubt
it.
PETE SHARE
Burbank
