June 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 14

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 Connect, let us know
how the magazine's articles apply to your job and your agency. To submit feedback for this
his
section directly, email Senior Editor Danielle Taylor at dtaylor@nrpa.org.

The point of the economic development role of parks is huge.
Vacation travel is done because of
destinations. People want to go to interesting places. If your park facilities
are all very standard, they will not
attract tourists, but if you have unique
and spectacular sites, you will be
building your local economy by attracting tourists. So how do we create
facilities and events that attract outof-town visitors? And how do we tell
this story within our communities to
position ourselves as agencies of high
value? Convention and visitors bureaus in your area should be your
best friend. They can promote your
parks and programs, and they can
help communicate the value of your
agency to the elected officials in your
area. We are natural allies to the destination marketing folks.
My only criticism of this article is
that Peter [Harnik, the author] assumes that park agencies are largely
funded with tax dollars. This is not
true with every agency. And the more
of your funding that comes from enterprise operations, the more you will
be in tune with your customers and
responsive to where the needs and
opportunities are. A largely tax-funded agency does not need to care about
tourists, but one that relies on customers will be interested in attaching
more people (locals and tourists) to
the facilities. Thank you, NRPA, for
running articles that address some of
12

Parks & Recreation

the important issues of today!
Comment on www.parksandrecre
ation.org/2014/May/How-Many-Outof-Towners-Are-in-Your-Parks by Paul
Gilbert, executive director of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority

I enjoyed " How Many Out-ofTowners Are in Your Parks? "
but almost all the data was from large
cities or tourist destinations. Many
local municipalities are also having a
problem with parks being used by increasing numbers of nonresidents.
This is a becoming serious issue for
smaller municipalities that do not
have budgets allowing for increased
usage and maintenance.
I have no informational data or
other statistics, but would be very interested in reading an article if anyone has that information.
Email from Patrick Stasio, CPRP,
director of parks and recreation for Upper Moreland Township, Pennsylvania,
regarding
www.parksandrecreation.
org/2014/May/How-Many-Out-ofTowners-Are-in-Your-Parks

| J U N E 2 0 1 4 | W W W. N R PA . O R G

Great Parks & Recreation Magazine issue in April...full of informative, compelling articles. I
wanted to respond to the NRPA
board chair's article about " telling
our stories. " It was a good message,
but I was wondering how we could
effectively communicate the many
park and recreation stories to audiences other than NRPA's park and
recreation professionals and citizen advocate members. Paper or
electronic-format publications that
reach the corporate community, the
healthcare/medical community, the
home builders/real estate industry
and, yes, the U.S. Congress. This has
most likely been discussed at NRPA
headquarters. We reach some outside of parks and recreation through
social media, [but] cost/resources
[are] always a limiting factor. [I also]
thought about a series of stories
from young and old who value parks
supported by LWCF in the run-up to
LWCF reauthorization in 2015.
Something to think about. Enjoy the
weekend...practice
what
we
preach...recreate!
Email from Mark Alan Young, consultant with Parks Forever Consulting
Ed. Note: In the " Collaborating for
Health " feature article in the April issue,
the opening image's location was identified as Lakewood, California. The correct location of the photo is Lakewood,
Colorado.

June 2014 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of June 2014 - Parks & Recreation