Last weekend, the Springfield Park District advertised
for a maintenance superintendent. The classified ad in the daily newspaper ran more
than six column inches. Park brass know exactly what they want from the
person who’ll be paid as much as $48,000 a year to make sure that
park facilities stay spiffy. Among other things, the new maintenance
supervisor needs a state pesticide applicator’s license, three years
of experience supervising others, and good communication skills. The
successful applicant should also “possess self-initiative and
independent decision-making as direct supervision may not always be
available.” What the park board is looking for in a new parks
director is considerably less clear. The park board hasn’t placed a single
help-wanted ad, interviewed a candidate, or otherwise mounted a search to
replace outgoing parks director John Linxwiler, who announced more than two
months ago that he’ll retire at the end of May after nearly a
quarter-century in the top job. Board member Bill Logan, who chairs the board’s
personnel committee, says that the park district is at a crossroads and
needs to decide long-term goals before hiring a new director.
Linxwiler’s retirement gives the board a chance to take stock, he
says. Money’s tight, top administrators are leaving en masse thanks
to an early-retirement offer, and no one knows what the organizational
chart will look like a month or so from now. “We need to know who we
are before we go out and try to find someone,” he says.
“It’s a perfect opportunity for us to stop and say,
‘What’s going on here?’ We’ve got to break with the
last 30 years before we put together the next 30.” In January, Logan and other board members met with Ted
Flickenger, executive director of the Illinois Association of Park
Districts, to talk about the association’s conducting a search for a
new director. A full-fledged national search would cost about $5,000, a
pittance for a district with an annual budget of about $17 million. But
shortly after the meeting, Logan says, board members learned that budget
shortfalls were deeper than expected and decided that the board should
concentrate on reorganizing the district’s administrative structure.
“It was at that point that I called Ted and told him we weren’t
going to stop the process; we were just going to slow it down some,”
Logan says. “We’re simply on hold now.” Some insiders have their doubts. Board member Tara McAnarney, who was elected last
year, says that time is running out. At first, she says, she agreed with
the decision to put the search on hold — nearly a dozen
administrators were retiring, and the board needed to figure out which ones
to replace and which positions to abolish in an effort to cut costs.
“Now, I realize, I was just naïve in thinking it was paused for
that reason,” McAnarney says. McAnarney fears that a majority of the board has
already decided to hand the post to deputy director Mike Stratton, whose
father is secretary of the Sangamon County Republican Party. McAnarney
believes that Stratton’s political connections may be trumping her
calls for a search. “I just think there’s more qualified people
out there than him,” she says. No board member will say that Stratton is a lock, but
there’s strong sentiment in his favor. “I’ve got some
reservations about putting the park district in the hands of someone with
no history and no understanding,” says board member Jack Pfeiffer, who favors promoting Stratton
to acting director and re-evaluating the situation in a year’s time.
“When you’ve got the director gone, the assistant director
gone, and the comptroller gone, who’s left over who knows anything
about this park district? Quite frankly, it’s Mike. I have no problem
recommending Mike to be acting director for a year and get us over this
hump. Unfortunately, there’s some people trying to make some
political hay out of this.” McAnarney says that’s become a familiar
accusation. “This really isn’t a political maneuver on my
part,” she says. “Doing a search is not a political
thing.” Flickenger says that a full-fledged search would take
two or three months. The state association would advertise and winnow
candidates and let the park board make the final call. “It’s
not too late,” he says. If he were on the park board, Flickenger
says, he’d hire someone who is an expert in parks and recreation and
an entrepreneur who could forge partnerships with community groups to
create more programs. The district, he says, could provide more
after-school programs for kids and give more attention to reducing youth
obesity. “We’re lacking a lot of recreation programming in
Springfield,” Flickenger says. Stratton agrees that the district could do a better
job working with community groups to create new programs and capital
projects. For example, he doesn’t think that the district has worked
closely enough with the private parks foundation that has raised hundreds
of thousands of dollars for park improvements. “I have a considerable
amount of respect for John Linxwiler,” he says. “Now,
it’s time to move to a new level.” McAnarney says that the park district moves too slowly
and that it could use some fresh ideas. “Case in point: We’re not picking a
director, and he retires in three months,” she says.
This article appears in Mar 9-15, 2006.
