February 23, 2006

City comes up with innovative plan in effort
to save Community Centers

By Carol Rosen
Staff Writer

Rumors have swirled the past couple of months that the city is in the process of closing several community centers due to the budget crunch. While it’s true the deficit is making it harder to run many of these facilities, the Department of Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services is doing its best to save 34 senior and community centers throughout San Jose.

The Spot is one of 34 community centers located throughout San Jose being considered for “facility reuse.” Situated next to Bret Harte Middle School, it appears that several groups have shown interest in running The Spot, according to Daniella Polar, community relations coordinator for Councilwoman Nancy Pyle’s District 10 office.

“The last thing we want to do is close these centers,” said Maria Hurtado, former deputy director of community services for PRNS. “We didn’t anticipate the downturn in the economy and we will continue to see budget cuts for the next couple of years. Our desire is to be creative and not close these centers. We’ve determined that we can partner with agencies and schools to run these centers.”

PRNS has chosen hub centers for each district in the city. Almaden’s hub will be the new center/library that’s being built on Camden Avenue. Two other centers in the area, Hoffman/Via Monte and The Spot are among the 34 facilities being considered for reuse.

The city currently is undergoing a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) process for reuse, added Daniella Polar, community relations coordinator for Councilwoman Nancy Pyle’s District 10 office. “There are lots of options before we have to resort to closure,” Polar said.

She noted several of the possible options before the city will have to close centers. These include alternate city operations, such as returning the centers to parklands and alternative public interest, nonprofit and for-profit groups that could run the centers. In fact, Cynthia Bojorquez, assistant to the city manager who is working on the program, noted that the Strong Neighborhood Initiative will take over operation of the Hoffman/Via Monte Community Center.

There have been groups that have shown interest in running The Spot, which is located at Bret Harte Middle School, said Polar. But until the RFQ process is opened, nothing much will happen. Once the process is finalized, she added, then the city can start receiving proposals.

Staffing, budget decline
In 2001-02, the PRNS staffing level for these centers was at its peak with 149 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees and an annual budget from the General Fund of about $10 million. This year, 2005-06, the staff has been cut to 75 FTEs with a $6 million budget allocation.

It’s nearly impossible to run the district hub community centers and the 34 designated facilities PRNS currently has in service with the current budget.

“It is necessary in order to preserve the usefulness and community service character of our community center sites and to minimize the impact of the facilities closures,” to develop a facilities re-use strategy, according to the PRNS proposal to the City Council.

During the fiscal crisis the city hopes to rely on partnerships with schools, non- and for-profit agencies and the community. That way, third party groups who have expressed interest in expanding their services through use of some of the city’s community centers can prevent the centers from being closed while in turn benefiting from the use of the facilities.

“It’s the last [and best] alternative to closure,” said Hurtado. “No one wants to see any of our community or senior centers close. The goal is to ensure a fair and open process with opportunities for stakeholder involvement providing the maximum benefit to the city.”

New idea
It’s a brand new idea, “no other city has done this,” she added. In order to make the project work and to make it work more easily, PRNS determined five phases that are necessary to make the plan happen.

The first phase, is facility selection and assessment. This phase assessed the condition of these sites looking at each center to determine what, if any, costs would be necessary to bring them up to Americans with Disability Act standards and/or what system upgrades are needed; i.e. heaters.

The second phase, which began in January and was concluded earlier this month, consisted of community meetings to determine the importance of these centers to the community. Residents of these areas were asked to tell task force representatives why their centers are important.

The task force, according to the PRNS plan, is to include a broad cross section of city and community representatives. The representatives attended the community sessions to have multiple opportunities to derive community input.

Broad membership
Task force members include representatives from PRNS; the library; youth, senior and disability commissions; project area committees from the Strong Neighborhood Initiative, United Way; San Jose State; General Services, the business community; the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley; union representative; faith-based organizations; and school districts.

A meeting was held on Wednesday, Jan. 25 for Houge Park, Cambrian, Kirk, Hoffman Via Monte, The Spot and Edenvale to cover south side community and senior centers in Districts 2, 9 and 10. City Councilmembers Forrest Williams, Judy Chirco and Nancy Pyle attended the meeting. A total of nine community meetings were held throughout the city’s 10 districts.

Bojorquez says the community meetings were extremely productive. “We’ve captured a lot of information from these meetings,” she said. If more than one group expresses interest in a center, Bojorquez said the task force will encourage the groups to collaborate. “We’ve gotten a good response so far. If the groups combine it will provide a range of services at each of the community centers,” she added.

Data review
Once the community-input process was completed in mid-February, the task force began reviewing all the data. Hurtado said the plan is to review the meeting data in March and April, take the recommendations to the City Council members for a vote, and select the non-profit operators in May and June. The task force will then conduct contract negotiations over the summer, which will allow the non-profits to begin their service by October.

“The city will provide 49 employees, but they will be concentrated in the larger facilities like Camden leaving 6.75 FTEs to run the remainder of the district. We will partner with others to run the other satellite centers. This is a cost-neutral strategy. The agencies will pick up some operating costs, like janitorial services and the city will upgrade the facilities through Measure P,” Hurtado added.