City departments need oversight

City departments need oversight

I disagree with your assess- ment in a recent editorial regarding the city positions of chief planner and park and recreation director.

Having moved back to Youngstown in 2001, I have had daily experience living in this city. I am a community activist who has given much to my city hoping to make it better, sometimes to the point of exhaustion.

Because of me repeatedly contacting the parks department, we were finally able to get new fencing installed at Buckeye Field in 2009. Jason Whitehead was cooperative about this. However, when I pointed out to him that it needed to be painted to match the existing fencing, he had a mental block and could not figure out why this needed to be done. We ended up getting paint from the parks department but had to do the work ourselves. This should be a regular parks department function for which I pay my taxes. Now in 2011, the rest of the fence remains unpainted.

At Ipe Field, grass was growing over the asphalt pathway from the play area to the basketball court. We asked that it be cleared, which, should be a routine job. This was never done. Take a look at the bleachers sometime, too. Very shameful.

These are just two examples of poorly maintained parks that I have had direct involvement in. You said the department “has operated as efficiently as can be expected given the budgetary strictures that are a reality in governments everywhere.” I expect that basic maintenance is included in the expectation, don’t you?

As regards the planning office, I find it funny that Youngstown has gotten world-wide media attention and praise for its plan, yet doesn’t have a planner to implement it. A planner would provide leadership, focus and energy to move Youngstown 2010 forward. The “planning” department is very small and stretched thin and is not doing this.

I know that both of these positions are needed because I experience daily the lack of leadership in these key areas. Your viewpoint just emphasizes the general backwardness of this area and really makes me sad.

Mary Krupa, Youngstown