E-DEMOCRACY | St. Paul’s Conway Recreation Center to be privatized

From: Betsy Leach Date: Oct 12 19:40 UTC

Folks, it is bad news from the Mayor’s Office and confirmed by our city council member… Conway Rec Center is slated to be taken over by a private soccer club – no more city staff there to look after what is happening on the grounds, to provide after school activities for kids, to have positive adult role models out in the community. The senior activities are likely to continue there, but no rec programming out of the building. It isn’t clear how accessible the ball fields will be, if the soccer group is using the facility.

We have already had two of our former 4 rec centers closed in the past 4 years. We have over 20,000 people in our district, does the city really believe that Battle Creek Rec can provide for all of us? How many staffed rec centers does St. Anthony Park have with its 9000 residents? How many does Hamline Midway have with its 11,500 residents? Our land use tends to be much more spread out than other parts of the city, and our transit service is not that great… how are kids supposed to get to places where positive activities are available??

Contact the Mayor at <email obscured> and tell him that we have already made our sacrifice with the loss of Eastview and Highwood Hills Recs. Contact Kathy Lantry at <email obscured> and tell her to stand up for eastside children and young people.

Betsy

From: Betsy Leach Date: Oct 13 12:33 UTC

I see that the forum is not letting us print email addresses for the Mayor and Kathy.

If you go to the district 1 website = just search on district 1 community council, there is a contact list there under Resources, Your Elected Officials.

Betsy

From: Steven Clift Date: Oct 13 13:21 UTC

While e-mails in posts go out via e-mail our tech protects you from spam harvesters on the web site … but that doesn’t help when you want to generate replies.

Simple solution:

Contact the Mayor at mayor (at) ci.stpaul.mn.us and tell him that we have already made our sacrifice with the loss of Eastview and Highwood Hills Recs. Contact Kathy Lantry at ward7 (at) ci.stpaul.mn.us and tell her to stand up for eastside children and young people.

…

Just replace @ with (at) when you post and people can generally figure out what the address is … you could also in cases like this include telephone numbers.

From: Stacey Van Patten Date: Oct 13 13:22 UTC

Betsy-

I will follow up and send a message to the Mayor and Kathy. I am very disappointed, especially after ending my son’s Flag Football season just last night with one of the BEST coaches we have ever had, Coach Eric with Conway. In addition to doing an exceptional job with these kids all season, at both the games and practices, he is genuinely liked and looked up to by the kids. He just exemplifies what a youth coach should be. He arranged for the 2 Conway teams to play at Harding’s Homecoming football game during halftime last night, this is something my son will never forget, and Coach Eric did it all for the kids. Sat with them during the game, taught them how to cheer and jeer, and just again made the night special. I will also let our elected officials know that in loosing this facility, we jeopardize loosing these good influences for the kids in this neighborhood. It is bad enough, and something I have voiced a concern over before, to not see the same effort of investment to our infrastructure and community, but when it continues to the kids, it is too much already.

p.s. do you know how I can contact Parks and Rec and let them know what an exceptional coach he is and how I hope he stays in the area.

Thanks-Stacey

From: Ebony Young Date: 18:03 UTC

I also hope the parks and rec staff keep Eric on as well. My son was also apart of the half time game for the kids at Harding and Is something he will never forget. I will do my part to let the Mayor know hoe losing the Conway rec center will affect me and my children.

See thread here.