Investigating the pluses and minuses of hiring a recreation director has been a stated fiscal 2017 goal of the selectmen since they put their list together in July. But news that Town Administrator Tim Bragan had already drafted a job description for the position seems to have come as a surprise to Parks and Recreation Commission Chairwoman Wyona Lynch-McWhite. At Tuesday’s selectmen’s meeting, she told the board that she had first learned of the effort when she received a copy of the draft last Friday and that she and other board members had given input to their selectman liaison Stu Sklar for the first time at their Monday meeting. She said she wished they had been consulted and been part of the process.
As we reported in last week’s issue, Lynch-McWhite and commissioner Doug Thornton had already met with the Charter Commission two weeks ago, where they discussed at length the need for a director who could take on administrative tasks currently handled by the volunteer commissioners, as well as management of field maintenance. No selectmen were present at that meeting, which was unavailable on cable, so Sklar and Bragan would have been unaware of the substance of that discussion. Nor was the selectmen’s work on a job description ever mentioned at the Charter Commission meeting, so the commissioners were likely as much in the dark as Parks and Rec.
Why, in a small town like this, is effective communication and collaboration among boards so often lacking? There would be a real advantage in having the selectmen “work with the Parks and Recreation Commission,” as their fiscal 2017 goal specifies, to hash out the ways a paid recreation director could make life easier for the town’s overworked Parks and Rec volunteers. Their joint proposal could then be presented to the Charter Commission for discussion and incorporation into Harvard’s possible charter. Given the deep knowledge that Lynch-McWhite and her commissioners have of recreation programs, and parks and fields in Harvard, they were left out of the loop too long.
