Harvard could have a paid parks and recreation director next year if voters at Annual Town Meeting agree to establish the new position. Selectman Stu Sklar, the board’s liaison to the Parks and Recreation Commission, has been working with Town Administrator Tim Bragan as the latter prepared a draft proposal that would create the position and possibly reconfigure the commission itself. Parks and Rec commissioners received the proposal last Friday and discussed it briefly at their Monday meeting. Four members of the commission, including newly appointed Ed Frackiewicz, were at the selectmen’s meeting Tuesday night to give input on the proposal.
Commission members were in agreement about the need for a paid director, but rather than the part-time position Bragan proposed, they argued there is enough administrative work to make the position a full-time one. Chairwoman Wyona Lynch-McWhite suggested that the selectmen would be astounded at the hours she and others spend on administrative tasks such as payroll, staff issues, registering beach and boat stickers, scheduling fields, preparing a budget. During open comment time Bruce Nickerson of the Finance Committee told the selectmen that of all the volunteer boards, Parks and Rec has the most to do.
Bragan’s draft proposes changing the commission from five elected members to seven members appointed by the Board of Selectmen. On this point the commissioners unanimously disagreed. At their Monday meeting they had expressed concerns that changing the board to appointed rather than elected members would make Parks and Rec an arm of the selectmen rather than a vehicle for residents’ concerns. Sklar asked Bragan if the commission might be a “hybrid” made up of four elected and three appointed members, and Bragan said he didn’t know. But Lynch-McWhite objected to the idea, saying that appointed members might represent different town sports groups and that this could prove divisive.
The proposal separates recreation from parks and turns over responsibility for field maintenance and for upkeep of the Common, playgrounds, and beach to the Department of Public Works. Lynch-McWhite made it clear that recreation and parks should not be separated, that there is more to maintaining fields than mowing, and that jurisdiction over the Common should be maintained by the commission. She said experience has proven that DPW cannot do the work. At Monday night’s meeting, John Lee of Ayer Road urged the commission to take parks into account—all sections of the Common, including land around Town Hall—as they reviewed the restructuring proposal. The commission had discussed the ongoing dilemma of the upkeep of the Common land between the General Store and the Congregational Church, with ideas ranging from curbing to a large patio. Tuesday night Lynch-McWhite made a strong case for a director of parks and recreation, not just recreation.
As the selectmen discussed a timeline for moving forward, Lynch-McWhite urged them to take the time to create a complete strategic plan, not to focus just on the job of a director but to clarify the role of the commission members in relation to a paid professional. She also said that while the commission was supportive of the director position, something members had talked about often, she would like to have been involved in the creation of the proposal and had input during the process. She asked whether something specific had prompted the selectmen to propose this position at this time. Bragan said there had been no precipitous event, that “multiple informal discussions led to the draft.”
“So everybody thinks it’s a good idea,” said Chairman Ken Swanton, referring to the hiring of a director; it’s a matter of working out the details, he said. The selectmen seemed optimistic that they could move things along and present a warrant article for a paid director in the spring.
