Mayor re-stiches offices that were split by Menino

Mayor Walsh is reorganizing a key city agency this week by ordering the transfer of a dozen employees who work to program youth sports and other outdoor events to report to the Parks and Recreation Department. The move unwinds a Menino administration initiative that had shifted those jobs to the Boston Centers for Youth and Families (BCYF) more than a decade ago.

In shifting the program managers and their support staff back into the Parks and Recreation Department, the Walsh administration says it is seeking to streamline planning for youth sports and outdoor events that are mainly held in the city’s parks.

"Activating our parks is a priority for my administration," said the mayor in a statement to the Reporter. "Moving the city's recreation unit back to the Parks and Recreation Department will increase the positive programming in parks, streamline communication, and offer more opportunities for collaboration."

“I think it’s going to be a substantive change in the way we deliver services to the youth, because we’ll connect our open spaces to programs,” said Chris Cook, the commissioner of the Parks and Recreation Department. “It will provide more bodies in our parks, and more eyes and that will increase the general safety and the programming. It will more directly connect these facilities with youth programming opportunities.”

Impacted employees are receiving official notice of their transfers this week, according to Ryan Woods, director of external affairs for the department.

The move may be confusing to the public, since the agency has always been known as the Parks & Recreation Department. But, in truth, the recreation component of the agency was peeled away in 2002 when the late Mayor Tom Menino decided to site sports programming managers inside the BCYF agency.
Walsh heard complaints about this move and its impacts while on the campaign trail in 2013.

“It made sense to have everything under the one umbrella of the parks department,” said Woods. “It will be streamlined and easier to facilitate events and easier with the communication front. It will all be here at 1010 Massachusetts Avenue.” Until recently, some of the recreation managers were housed in an office space at Madison Park High School, Woods said.

The city’s community centers will still have their own individual recreational directors on site, said Woods. The employees based at the Parks and Recreation Department will have oversight of larger citywide events, such as the Mayor’s Cup tournaments.

Cook said that having the staffing moves done this month will allow for sufficient planning for summer activities in the parks. “It gives us the lead time to plan for the busy summer season. We plan to augment existing programs, but we’ll be looking at all programs this summer and looking at what we can do to enhance them next year,” he said.