Trio gets plans rolling on city's recreation needs

THIS STORY RAN IN THE PRINT EDITION OF THE KANSAN ON JULY 12, 2008.

Moving forward with a plan to address recreational facilities in Newton will begin with an action plan put together by the city, school board and recreation commission.

Following a joint meeting of the boards, John Morton, school superintendent; Randy Riggs, city manager; and Brian Bascue, recreation center superintendent, were asked to work on an action plan to create recreational facilities and craft programs that meet current and future community needs.

They have done just that — and will present the plan to the three boards in a joint meeting at 11:30 a.m. July 24 at North Newton City Hall.

“All three boards have individually looked at the action plan,” Riggs said. “At the meeting, we hope to put people together to work on getting the information we need to continue to move forward with this.”

The action plan itself is an outline of what needs to be done, starting with the tasks, who’s responsible for each task, the resources needed for those tasks and when the tasks need to be completed.

The ultimate goal of the plan it to establish expanded program focus in response to recreational studies and determine what facilities are needed to meet the program requirements.

Recreational facilities and program improvements will be discussed based on the information from the studies performed for the Newton Recreation Commission’s master plan and the market analysis done by FourSquare.

“This is a complicated process,” Riggs said. “Three different governing bodies are responsible for the entire project.”

Coming together to meet the needs of the community as a whole is important in deciding where recreation fits into the quality of life in Newton, he said.

“We want to bring the boards together and get people working on the tasks,” Riggs said.

Each of the three entities has interest in the outcome of the plan.

The city’s role is to establish appropriate facilities for recreational opportunities. The USD 373 Board of Education is responsible for approving the Newton Recreational Commission mill levy for the recreational budget.

The recreation commission may see a possible change in oversight role for total community recreational programming.

To help keep a level of objectivity to the process, it was suggested at the joint meeting a facilitator be hired.

“Having someone with an outside perspective will help the boards make the best decision,” Morton said.

He hopes a decision will be made on who to hire for the facilitator’s position at the upcoming meeting, because having one is almost essential to move forward with the project.

Representatives from the school district, city, recreation commission and the Newton Area Chamber of Commerce will review the study findings and the priority of items with costs associated with them.

However, it doesn’t stop there.

The boards and the community will need to support the findings and final decision in the direction to go — improved programming through recreation commission facilities or bring in an outside entity such as the YMCA to oversee the new programming and facilities.