Ronan Parks department low on funding
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RONAN – Ronan City Council spoke with the city’s parks and recreation coordinator Jennifer Rolfsness Monday, March 14 to discuss funding issues for 2011. According to Rolfsness, the parks and recreation department is feeling the economic crunch after overspending in 2010.
Rolfsness is currently working for the courts, which takes roughly 20 hours per week away from supervising the parks. She told council members that the parks program needs another employee to help with maintenance. The problem is there’s very little funding for hiring a new employee.
“If we don’t have another parks person, I don’t know what will happen to the park,” Rolfsness said.
She is afraid that the park will not be mowed and kept up the way it should be.
Last year, the parks department began watering the flowers on Main Street, which ended up costing more the department had planned for.
“It took up to three hours every day of the summer,” she said. “It was a nice thing, but we can’t afford it this year.”
Rolfsness suggested that the parks try to get volunteers to help with maintenance.
“Wel,l we can’t do that because workmans compensation won’t allow it,” Mayor Kim Aipperspach said, “The person would have to be supervised, which would get us nowhere.”
Meaning, if they were to have a volunteer, Rolfsness would have to supervise them, which would prevent her from doing her work.
The council decided that the issue is something they will have to address during budget time, in July.
Aipperspach asked Rolfsness to come to the next meeting with a recommendation as to how many hours a new employee would be needed to work.
Rolfness also brought a new parks program to the council called Pathways for Play, which are synergistic pods along a path that get kids to move and learn at the same time. During a recent conversation with Rolfsness, the pod developer said they would like to incorporate tribal information and activities into the pathway.
“They would like to use Ronan as a national demonstration spot,” Rolfsness explained.
She added that she’ll know by mid-April if Ronan will become a demonstration site.
The next Ronan City Council meeting is scheduled for March 28.
