Summary of the ConwayCAG Meeting 1/31/13

January 31, 2013 at Conway Rec Center

In attendance: Kris Gjerde, chair; Chris Dollar-Simmons, Clara Ware, Erika Martin, Sandy Rosbacka, Kate Staples, Chris Melendez, Melvin Baker, Kathy Korum, Gwen Peterson, Mike Devilliers, Kathy Lantry,  Ellen Biales, Betsy Leach (scribe)

Updates on Outreach

         Parks representatives have been trying to schedule outreach to youth in the area and to the apartment complexes that are immediate neighbors of Conway Rec Center.

         District 1 held a community meeting to take input and also has met with elders participating in the senior programming at Conway and individuals. A couple of concerns were uniform among these neighbors. First, too many of them had not understood that the privatization will proceed once we have found a service partner. D1 is trying to get the word out of what is actually happening with this process via the web and our upcoming newspaper. Second, people want to make sure that Conway expands its role as a community gathering place. Third, people are concerned with how the partner will communicate with neighbors, making people aware of what is offered and how they will be welcomed into the facility. Finally, people want to make sure that there are year-round activities both inside and outside the building, and suggest that shared meals at the facility might be a way to continue building community here.

         The elders were concerned with how their program through Community Ed will interact with the new partner and how they are being kept informed about this process (Kathy Korum is Parks liaison with Community Ed administration).  Both the elders and the current sports programs have questions about how equipment will be stored, maintained and made available to people using the facility.

Demographic  Information about the Area

         District 1 shared information from the 2010 census about who lives in the district. They are working with researchers to break this district-wide information down to the area immediately around the rec center. A summary of district data with comparisons to the city at large can be found at this site by clicking on the map for the District 1 neighborhood. Staff also shared a summary file that compares the percentage of households in each of the district councils of that have children under the age of 18 and seniors over the age of 65. This chart shows that District 1, all the other eastside councils, the westside, North end and  Frogtown (councils 1-7) have much higher percentages of households with young children than districts on the western side of town (councils 8-17). These data should be shared with potential partners.

Discussion of the Draft RFP (Request for Proposals)

           The rest of the meeting was spent going through the draft RFP and discussing the process by which it would be released, proposals gathered, and then reviewed. The members agreed that emphasis should be on selling the facility and the neighborhood as a great opportunity to potential partners. We need to highlight the assets that we have and the particular asset that this facility represents. We went through the draft page by page and discussed how it can be written to convey the desires of the community for programming and opportunities at this location. Discussion centered on how specific we can or should be and what the priorities for programming should be. Given our goals, we want to assure leadership and personal development among participants who should be of all ages and backgrounds. We also want to assure that the partner is a good neighbor to the community at large.

          Specifics of the discussion included what kind of access there will be, how communication/marketing happens between the partner and the community, whether the emphasis in programming should be on sports or education, and the range of partners we might want.  We reemphasized that we will find local places for all current activities that may not be able to remain at Conway. We also discussed what Parks needs from the partner, the money involved, and what should be in the RFP vs.  in the contract.

       Parks will take all the comments and redraft the RFP for review at the next meeting (Feb 11).

Please note that the specifics of the RFP cannot be released to the neighborhood until it is ready to be released to potential partners. This is a legal requirement of the City’s RFP process. The community should be assured that the CAG members and District 1 continue to gather input from residents (and businesses) about what programming should look like at Conway.

Also note that there will be another community meeting where updates will be provided and input gathered. That meeting will be Monday, February 25 at 6:30p at Conway Rec Center. You can also contact the district council to give comments – district1council@aol.com or 651.578.7600.