The Park & Recreation Department will be the focus of an ordinance amendment this summer to restore its former organizational structure.
The reorganization is needed because the P&R Department was absorbed into the Community Services Department, a department created during the tenure of former mayor Richard K. Sullivan.
The Community Services Department was created by combining the PR, Council On Aging and Veterans’ Services departments. Ann Marie Heiser, then the PR director, was appointed to head the new Community Services Department, pulling the director’s position out of the P&R Department structure.
Heiser later left city employment to take a post in Virginia.
The Community Services Department was created through an ordinance approved by the City Council.
The council has already approved ordinance amendments to separate the Council on Aging and the Veterans’ Services departments, but has yet to act on the P&R Department, which still does not have a director’s position or funding.
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik, last November, requested the P&R commission to begin a discussion with the goal of having a departmental reorganization in place by July 1, 2012, the beginning of the 2013 fiscal year.
Knapik said that he will not be able to fund a director’s position until the last quarter of the 2013 fiscal year budget.
“We’re not going to be in a position to entertain a change in the status of the director’s position until April,” he said. “I have planned to fund it beginning in January, but I had to cut back on that salary.”
The appointment of a P&R director will be made by the P&R Commission when funding is available.
“We should be advertising the post in January, which takes 30 days, then screening candidates in February with the commission making the appointment in March,” Knapik said, “So we have the summer to work on the ordinance.”
Knapik said that he plans to return to the department structure before the consolidation: a director, a program coordinator and a clerk.
The current program director, James Blascak, has been performing the duties of the director since Heiser resigned her position.
Blascak’s status was the subject of two recent meetings. Last week, the P&R Commission voted to extend Blascak’s authority to sign all contracts.
P&R Chairman Ken Magarian said that he requested an opinion about the process of authorizing Blascak to sign contracts.
“We were told we have to vote every year to give him the authority to sign contracts,” Magarian said.
The City Council’s Legislative and Ordinance also discussed Blascak’s status during discussion of an ordinance amendment regulating acting or interim department heads. The current ordinance is being modified because it is in violation of state law.
The current ordinance allows the mayor to appoint an interim department supervisor for six months, while state law limits that time frame to extend to only 60 days.
The L&O is seeking to add another six months to an interim supervisor’s tenure with a nomination by the mayor and confirmation by the council.
Ward 2 Councilor James E. Brown Jr. said that is not an issue with Blascak.
“He’s not the acting department head,” Brown said, “”He is the program coordinator who is performing those supervisory duties. The city is paying him, equal to a department head.”
