We love parks and green space, but what are the real needs of our community? The Town of Waxhaw is currently growing the Parks & Rec staff and budget by leaps and bounds in an effort to align with “benchmarks” from NRPA (a private nonprofit). Why the quotes around that word? Well, because the NRPA report that the Town of Waxhaw considers a “benchmark” states that it does not “represent any standards against which every individual park and recreation agency should measure itself”.
Why is our town government taking as gospel a report which states that it is not a standard? We need to think critically about what our real needs are. We should also be thinking about:
- Density of population. Less dense populations will tend to have less of a need for green space and parks because they have their own (hopefully large) backyards.
- The NRPA report only provides data about localities that have a parks and rec department. Since it doesn’t take into account the localities that do not have a department, the averages they present for spend and employees are likely to be higher than the real needs of a community. Factoring in all the places in the US that spend nothing on parks and rec would bring the averages down.
- Parks and green space that are not managed by our Parks and Rec department. Waxhaw has residential developments with HOAs that maintain walking trails and parks. All of these should be taken into account.
We do not have the funds or the desire to start and finish this project. What are people thinking? Look at the amount of money being spent not to mention all the new employees on the payroll for this park.