George Bush – the first one – was in the White House, Al Gore hadn’t yet invented the Internet (or claimed to) and Jerry Garcia was still leading the Grateful Dead when Leslie Sgro became president of the Springfield Park District in 1991.
Until now, Sgro hasn’t been challenged at the polls. But park board member Robin Schmidt, midway through her first term, says it’s time for a change, and so she is running against Sgro in the April 7 general election.
“Currently, we’ve had the same park board president for almost a quarter of a century,” Schmidt said. “It’s a long time for anybody to be doing any one thing. For a public body, I think it really resonates with people that we need change. We need fresh ideas.”
Sgro says that she’s not ready to move on.
“It’s not so much the length of time but the dedication and commitment,” Sgro said. “I believe that I am as dedicated and as committed to keeping the parks as fantastic for the community as I always have been.”
Finances and the future lie at the center of Schmidt’s campaign. The park board, she says, needs to prioritize and make some hard choices. The cash-strapped district struggles to maintain facilities such as Henson Robinson Zoo and Nelson Center while adding new parks and properties, she says.
“We need to sit down and have a cost-benefit analysis of all of our facilities,” Schmidt said. “You can’t continue to add and add and add and add. When you have the same revenue stream, you can’t add and never subtract anything. … We have negative cash balances because of long-term projects and new parks that the park district has taken over. I have confidence that the administration is trying to dig a hole out of the mess that has been made in the last two decades. We’ve got a ways to go.”
While Schmidt says the park district is millions of dollars in debt and struggling to maintain properties, Sgro says that the district is rebounding from tight times that hit with the recession of seven years ago.
“We passed some very conservative budgets,” Sgro said. “Our financial position continues to get stronger all the time.”
The park district is working on a long-range plan, but Sgro said her gut feel is that the district can handle growth that has seen the addition of four parks to the district since she became board president. She said the merger of the city’s park department with the district in 2002 eliminated a layer of government and improved efficiency.
“When I look at that, I think about good government,” said Sgro, who points to the opening of Dreamland Park on the city’s east side in 1996 as one of her proudest moments.
“My bottom line is, I get great joy from going out to a park and seeing something that either wasn’t there or is now better,” Sgro said. “I think about Dreamland Park, where we did that in conjunction with the community, and the day it opened and kids playing on all the playground equipment.”
Schmidt says that the board needs to be more transparent. Video recordings of board meetings should be posted on the district’s website, she said.
“I get a lot of questions: When did you guys make that discussion? Why wasn’t there a public discussion? Where can I go see?” Schmidt said.
Schmidt said she’s pushed to get recordings on the website, but has met resistance.
“The response has been (that) our technology is not where it needs to be without spending an unacceptable amount of money,” Schmidt said. “I don’t find that an acceptable answer. I don’t think this is that hard.”
Sgro said the board is “completely transparent.” She said that she doesn’t recall Schmidt proposing to the board that videos of board meetings be posted on the district website, but she’s open to the idea.
“That would be something that the board would need to discuss,” Sgro said. “If the board’s in favor, I’d be in favor.”
Sgro, who has more than $30,000 in her campaign fund and hasn’t held a fundraiser since 2010, has a huge financial advantage over Schmidt, who had less than $7,700 in her campaign fund as of Dec. 31, the end of the last reporting period.
“It’s going to take some money to get my message out,” Schmidt said.
Contact Bruce Rushton at brushton@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jan 29 – Feb 4, 2015.
