What Snoqualmie really needs is a recreation manager—that’s the recommendation of Ralph Dannenberg, the consultant the city hired to examine efficiencies and leadership of its parks and recreation arm.

Snoqualmie has been without a standalone parks and recreation head since Gwen Voelpel resigned in 2011; Dan Marcinko’s Public Works Director role expanded to become Interim Parks and Public Works Director.

However, in October of 2013, Snoqualmie’s city council pledged to bring back an independent parks and recreation director. Last June, Dannenberg, a former parks director for Puyallup and former public services director for the city of Pullman, was paid $8,507 to take a detailed look at the city’s parks and recreation side, then give the city his recommendations on how it should be led.

Dannenberg, who brought his findings to council last Monday, Sept. 22,  was asked to examine efficiencies in the city’s parks and recreation arms, inventory resources, and make recommendations on a job description. He toured the city with parks supervisor Larry White and spoke with every parks-and-rec staffer.

“I think the department is very efficient,” Dannenberg said. “They do a good job… primarily due to the pride they take, rather than the entire staff functioning as a team.”

He told the council that there needs to be more communication between management and the field staff.

“The majority of the people I interviewed stated that the department should return to a director of parks and recreation as the administrative head,” Dannenberg said. “Staff thinks they’ll be better represented by a director…. there’s no one advocating for them and some feel the department has been allowed to stagnate. Somebody needs to be in place to fight for parks and recreation.

“I asked staff what’s been missed” under the current set-up, he added, saying there were no detrimental examples.

Much of the city’s recreation is now being amply handled by outside agencies, sports associations and the YMCA. But Snoqualmie still needs to be a partner, recommended the consultant.

“You have a lot of providers,” Dannenberg said. “They serve the community well, and they want to work together to make Snoqualmie better.

“If you were to form your own separate recreation department at this time, the result would be a weakening,” he added. “You’d be competing for the same people.

“There needs to be a higher staff person to assume responsibilities for recreation programming and development,” Dannenberg said. “The title for this position is a little difficult. I called it a recreation manager.” That’s the level, he says, appropriate for that responsibility.

Dannenberg suggested that parks and recreation divisions “remain within the public works umbrella at this time.” In his strategy, the parks supervisor and the new recreation manager would report to the public works director.

“There’s a lot of support given to parks now by the current director, than he’s given credit by the staff,” Dannenberg said. “The parks function can easily be broken off into its own function in the future, if that’s what you choose to do.”

Among Dannenberg’s other recommendations, he wants to see the city use a credit card system for park and field reservations; see a better program for introducing new employees to their jobs—“nobody reads manuals anymore”—and see the city start a donation catalog: “You’d be surprised how many people like to see their name in lights.”

The council went on to mull Dannenberg’s ideas. His recommendation is “important to get us out of limbo,” commented councilman Bryan Holloway.

However, councilwoman Kathi Prewitt challenged Dannenberg’s model.

“Did you (consider) that the public works director is looking at a fairly significant infrastructure issue” and workload in the near future, she asked. “I would think the scale (will) tip heavily toward public works in the next 15 years.”

That’s a reason why the recreation department gets a manager, Dannenberg answered.

“I started off at recreation supervisor,” he told Prewitt.

“I want to be real clear,” said Prewitt. “Council gave direction on this before this scope of work was developed…. It’s up to council whether we want to reverse our decision of 2013, that was well drawn out, many, many conversations, or do we need to go with the recommendation that is in this report? I’m not prepared to have that discussion tonight. I want to read through the report and really think through the recommendations.

“I don’t want to have staff and administration think we’re back in limbo when a decision was made,” she added.

“The decision was made,” Holloway replied. “It hasn’t been fully carried out.”

“This has gone on much too long,” commented councilman Charles Peterson.

Defending Dannenberg’s role, “We weren’t trying to disrespect the decision the council made,” said Mayor Matt Larson. “We were raising concerns that we’re not giving clear direction on this new director, defining exactly what are their responsibilities.

“The dilemma we struggle with is some (of the responsibility) is at a director level, but a lot of it, like the recreation piece, is more of a manager level,” the mayor said. “It’s a bit of a mix. Can you find someone who has that spread, someone who is going to be down in the weeds sometimes, but (also) at the higher level? Is that going to be an impediment to finding a quality candidate?” he asked Dannenberg.

“Every city I’ve worked for, directors were at different levels,” the consultant said. “I don’t believe it would be an issue. You just need to be very, very clear on what this person is going to do…. (In) smaller communities, you find directors out in the weeds, as you put it. I don’t think the salary differential is a killer.”

The council decided to send the matter back to its planning and parks committee, chaired by Kingston Wall, for further discussion.

Winter shelter introduction

The council also met Jennifer Kirk, director of the Snoqualmie Valley Winter Shelter, and David Johns Bowling, executive director with Congregations for the Homeless on the Eastside, who helps run the shelter.

The homeless shelter for men, women and children opens November 15 at North Bend Community Church, and runs through March. It is entering its third year in operation.

“We have talked to other churches,” Kirk said. “The Methodist church here in town, they have been open to discussions about housing it. We have transportation issues, other things, permitting that we’d have to go through, so we probably aren’t looking at that this season. But I wanted to present ourselves and open that to any questions.”

Open every night, the shelter averaged about 12 people per night last year, with an additional 20 coming for a warm meal.

Staff do background checks on every visitor, and don’t allow sex offenders to stay.

“We do check on Valley residency. We don’t want people to be creeping in from Seattle or even Bellevue,” Bowling said.

“Ideally we would like to run through April,” but can’t due to funding levels, Kirk said. “It’s still so cold here during those months….Our goal would be to end homelessness.”

Prewitt reminded Kirk about the city’s Human Services grants as a potential source of funding. Applications are due by October 8.

You can learn more about the Snoqualmie Valley Winter Shelter at http://www.valleyrenewalcenter.com/.