Park and Recreation Board Meeting

The Park and Recreation Board heard from representatives of the School district tonight. The points I came away with are:

1. The School District has provided the land and is developing sports fields.
2. The PTO, parent Teacher Organization is raising funds for play ground equipment.
3. The $24,000 is a small amount of the total being spent.
4. The District interprets the City Council Resolution in as broad a way as possible.

My Response:

1. The ball fields will be scheduled through Community ED and I am sure will be full most of the time

2. If the PTO did not exist then I would assume there would be no equipment. The City also passed the Resolution dealing with the School District not the PTO. The District seems to be triple dipping into the tax payers pocket. First with the initial bonding issue, secondly with the $24,000 in waived fees and lastly by having parents, who have already given twice, buy products their children sell to raise funds.

This last one seems to bother me more than most. One P&R Board member thought it was great to have kids sell. I do not. I am not sure when this happened but we seem to use our children as fund raisers more and more. It was mentioned that it was a Civic Duty for the children. Amazing how Civic Duty has been so twisted. I will not be surprised if the School District sends our kids out to raise money so they can be bused to school.

This is a philosophical argument I know. I did my "Civic Duty" and bought $24 from the PTO fund raiser. I worry that we continue to dip into the same pocket of the same taxpayers and it will run dry. The City of Isanti is below the state average in household income. There is already resentment over busing, activity fees and a bonding bill that our residents rejected. How many times can the taxpayer be pushed until they start to push back. We have hard working citizens in Isanti that expect their elected leaders to get the job done right the first time and not to come back with hat in hand.

3. If the $24,000 is such a small amount of money I will be happy to take it back.

4. I am extremely disappointed that the School District has taken an act of good faith and stretched it beyond reason. I have learned that if we ever partner with the District or other political entity that every detail will be spelled out verbatim.

The Park and Recreation Board approved Aluna Design to start work on a Park and Rec website and logo. This must then get aprroved by the city Council. This website will have maps and directions to city parks and trails. We will also have other information posted.

The Board will do the annual park tour the 4th Tuesday of April.