December 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 12

Letters
We hope the articles you read in Parks & Recreation are thought-provoking and
engaging, and we want to hear your opinions on what you read in these pages. Through
social media posts, website comments, emails to staff or posts on NRPA Connect, let us
know how the magazine's articles apply to your job and your agency. To submit feedback
for this section directly, email Associate Editor Samantha Bartram at sbartram@nrpa.org.

I want to compliment you on the
excellent Julie Bowen article regarding anaphylaxis. You have sent the
absolute correct message. I don't know
if you know how controversial this has
been - many departments refuse to
address this proactively, perhaps thinking, " That's not our role, " " We'll have
risk management all over us " or " What
if our part-time staff does it wrong? "
Worst of all, those directors at agencies
that want to do this find their hands
tied by the city attorney, human resources or risk management. The tasks
Bowen describes in her article are so
easy to do, and so important. I can't tell
you how happy I am to see this article.
Social equity indeed!
Email from John N. McGovern, J.D., President of Recreation Accessibility Consultants
LLC, regarding Emmy Award-winning actress Julie Bowen's October article " It's Time
to 'Get Schooled in Anaphylaxis' " (www.
parksandrecreation.org/2014/October/ItsTime-to-Get-Schooled-in-Anaphylaxis)
Your article avoids the most important ethical issues. What right
do individuals have to go into a national forest that they do not own (you hint
at some level of ownership by individuals of the Forest Service lands, but that
is clearly not the case, legally or ethically) and build whatever they feel is best
for their use? The whole reason for establishing governmental control over
these resources is to prevent this type of
activity. What would be left if everyone
went into the forests and just started
10 Parks & Recreation

digging and constructing whatever
they felt was " best? " The answer is " a
ruined forest. " Just because you can
find support from others that like your
particular sport and you can force the
Forest Service to accept your vandalism does not make it right or considerate to everyone else. The idea of preservation is to keep the resource as it is, to
be enjoyed by everyone in its natural
state, not to turn it into some kind of X
Games amusement park.
Comment by Dan Baker, Superintendent
of Parks at Richardson Parks and Recreation in Richardson, Texas, on Executive
Editor Danielle Taylor's blog post " Who
Owns the Forests? " (www.nrpa.org/
Blog/Who-Owns-the-Forests)
Thanks for your article on Minneapolis' downtown park. I
thought you did a good job laying out
the issue and challenge. It appears that
the park will go ahead with a conservancy model and a small board of private directors. If the conservancy ever
fails, however, the bills will end up in
the city's lap anyway. This story will
have many more chapters. Nice work.
Email from Dave Smith, a Minneapolis-based freelance writer, regarding NRPA
Vice President of Conservation and
Parks Rich Dolesh's October article " 'No
Thanks' Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Rejects Offer of Downtown
East Park " (www.parksandrecreation.
org/2014/October/No-Thanks-Minneapolis-Park-and-Recreation-Board-RejectsOffer-of-Downtown-East-Park)

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Is this the product of an audit,
possibly just good timing or
something else entirely? All parks programs should be experiencing some
natural increases in a recovering economy that has been basically down since
2009. How the sales increases account
for the more recent economic upswing
[and] population increases, and were
exactly figured in relation to the cost of
the audit is unknown. It is important to
remember that correlation is not the
same as causation. Ice cream sales increase in the summer and so do drownings, but eating ice cream does not
cause drowning. Similarly, two things
could be happened independently here
as well, an audit and an increase in
sales. Unless we have more information, like how park district sales as a
whole, across the nation, have been performing, it is not possible to control for
other variables and determine causation
or if the performed audit had the effect
it's claiming. I am not suggesting that it
is not possible the audit led to increased
sales, but that it is just as possible that
some other variable led to it, or that the
audit did not have as much of an impact as is being suggested.
Comment from Dr. Brad Kayden,
Founder and President of Jelly Bean
Sports, an early learning in sports
production and research company in
Chicago, Illinois, on Verde Martin
Marketing Coordinator Alli Meyer's
September article " The 'Other' Audit "
(www.parksandrecreation.org/2014/
September/The-Other-Audit)

December 2014 - Parks & Recreation

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