The Free Zilker Coalition representatives, along with East Town Lake Citizens Neighborhood Association and Deep Holly Advocates, met with our new City Manager T.C. Broadnax on June 24th. Our mission was twofold: introduce the new City Manager to parks issues dear to our hearts, and to advocate for an open process to hire a qualified Austin Parks Manager who could reverse the damage done by the past two Parks Directors.
After our meeting, we followed up with this letter, which turned out to be a Free Zilker Coalition manifesto:
Dear Mr. Broadnax,
Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us. To support and collaborate with you, we wanted to follow up with a concise position to recommend for the hiring of the future Parks Director.
Philosophy
Parks are now needed more than ever in the post-Covid, post-H.O.M.E. era, living with the global warming reality that we are currently surviving. Parks are our ecological, mental and spiritual-health wellsprings; Austin citizens are motivated and committed to keeping our parks healthy and open for citizens, not special interests. Austin is home to seven endangered species of animals, and Austin Parks Department partners with Fish and Wildlife Service to protect these unique species. Our Central Texas landscape is a very, very special place for humans and many indigenous beings, a crossroads and home to many cultures. We find our legacies in our parks. These parks will become our ancestral lands of the future.
Read more of the meeting we had with City Manager T.C. Broadnax...
Some History
In the early 2000s, Parks Director Sarah Hensley began directing Austin Parks toward the Public-Private-Partnership, or PPP, management model. Under this model, management is outsourced to nonprofit groups. It seemed like a good thing at the time, like we were getting something for nothing, a way to fill budgetary shortfalls. As this process unfolded, we have seen Not-for-profit, grassroots, just-us-folks entities turn into very wealthy and powerful groups. Some are creating profitable business enterprises within the very parks they are supposed to be stewarding. They now transform parks without the consent of park users or the neighbors who live near them—for the interests of powerful corporations or to enhance their own revenue streams. Important management goals are not met. (See examples below of problems/failures with not-for-profits.)
Rewild ATX has done a forensic report about the non-transparent accumulation of wealth among the not-for-profits, which points to serious concerns with the PPP model. While the stated not-for-profit intent is maintenance and stewardship, the inclusion of not-for-profits more often leads to increased commercialization of our parks, without stakeholder input.
Not-for-profits are often run by people who have recently come to the barrio, with a different and self-serving agenda. One Trails Conservancy board member lives in the Holly neighborhood and via a newly formed neighborhood group is organizing to change the park name. Why would anyone do that when generations of East Austinites have decided on their park name?
It’s not difficult to see how the vanity projects chosen by not-for-profits, such as the $900,000 awarded to Hill Country Conservancy’s Violet Crown Mile Zero, can lead to “mission drift” for our parks. The not-for-profits will pick shiny projects that result in resúmé-padding, like the whimsical troll in Pease Park, or a brass name-plate, like in Waterloo Park, while the unglamorous but necessary work of maintenance, remediation, management of invasive species, and, most importantly, parkland acquisition, goes unattended.
Most, if not all, of the management roles given to not-for-profits are non-compete bids. This is not how our parks were meant to be run, and it invites blatant corruption.
Our allegory: The deferment of park management to not-for-profits is similar to corporate outsourcing, which leads to exportation of jobs out-of-state/overseas, exploitation of employees, loss of financial transparency, and loss of local control of industry. When we don’t outsource park management, it means the City can create good parks jobs for City residents, for the benefit of City taxpayers and the environment. If park employees are treated well, this becomes good business and goodwill for budgeting cycles, building systems with integrity. Employees of not-for-profits are NOT guaranteed and in fact do not receive City minimum wages or benefits.
PPP management of parks is inherently anti-democratic, exclusive, and elitist. We see more and more “exclusive access,” “star treatment” and other disenfranchisement of our parks for the benefit of wealthy and privileged people. ACL has become a beloved/hated event that excludes Zilker Park from most of Austin, which combined with the also exclusive Trail of Lights shuts much of our crown jewel park from public (taxpayer) access for most of the mild seasons of the year, for events that most of us can’t afford.
We demand an independent audit of the entire PPP model.
Before the PPP model, Austin parks thrived in a “Golden Age” of Austin park management and development led by parks board Leader Roberta Crenshaw, who directly prevented the development of Auditorium Shores as a vast for-profit amusement park and instead, preserved it as an open space park for all Austinites to enjoy. Beverly Sheffield, working with Mrs. Crenshaw, implemented this model as parks director. The model/philosophy is called the “direct service model,” and this is the model to which we wish to return.
Qualifications we are looking for in the new Parks Director:
Experience in other parks systems and a track record that is evident. We will want to see the degree to which the candidate favors the PPP model or the direct service model. We are tapping the wisdom of a highly qualified park management professional, Ted Eubanks, who recommends hiring someone outside of Austin, not indoctrinated into the system. They should have knowledge of not just recreation, but biodiversity, water quality, water quantity, air quality, and heat island effect. Mr. Eubanks will be a valuable consultant in the selection process. He will know the kinds of professional qualifications of which neither you nor we would think.
Qualities we want in the new Parks Director:
Bertha – Honors history, culture, local art, willing to budget for outreach.
Carol – Fair-minded, business practices that are above-board and adhere to the City regulations.
Cedar – Willing to fight for the parks budget, and YES, that is the job of the parks Director. Willing to fight for the ecology side of parks.Elisa – Community involved, true grassroots, and a person who is accessible to the people. Stop the practice of using PARD working groups to bypass valid stakeholder input.
Karen – A nature lover who values having shade and potable water everywhere.
Scott – Devotion to staff, commitment to staffing, safety.
Tanya – Willing to commission an independent audit of the Austin parks’ NonProfit business model and a focus on parks as a way to support biodiversity, air quality, water quality and quantity and the urban heat island effect.
Teri – Commitment to a direct service model of parks management.
Dana – All of the above.
Hiring Process
We demand an open and transparent hiring process, similar to the City Manager hiring process that chose a highly qualified professional over an insider hire who would be biased towards the PPP model. We are also, beyond parks, concerned that the PPP model may be applied to other city functions, resulting in increasing disenfranchisement of Austin citizens.
Wrap-up
We thank you, Mr. Broadnax, for considering these recommendations and conferring with us. We know you face a very steep onramp and you are evaluating who to know, who to trust, and to whom to listen.
We are a coalition of long-term, generational Austin neighborhood and environmental advocates and parks workers with no contracts for profit or conflict of interest, just 100% hometown love.
Notes:
PPP Mismanagements and failures
- Zilker Zephyr—The Zilker Zephyr stopped running for four years after the tracks were flooded. After the erosion problems, the City handed control of the Zilker mini-train to the Austin Parks Foundation (APF), a Not-for-Profit that is one of the subjects of Free Zilker’s study. The City expected APF would quickly get the train ride up and running again. But APF had no experience running mini-trains and wound up buying a train that no longer works from a company that no longer exists. The foundation paid almost $365,000 for the train and tracks and then struggled to find someone to fix the locomotive and coaches. When the line finally reopened under a new name, it was quickly derailed by a stone placed on the tracks and not observed by the conductor.
- Waterloo Park—long story short: Waterloo was transformed from an open city park to a Ticketmaster venue.
- Palm Park—a culturally important landmark to many locals has become an extension of the Waterloo Greenway development. Recently, a neighborhood pool was destroyed without neighborhood knowledge or permission. Locals are not pleased with the high-handed treatment of their cultural landmarks.
- Butler Trail, The Trails Conservancy—in opposition to all environmental groups involved, lobbied for and obtained an exemption from Critical Water Quality Zone that would limit the trail to 20 feet or less. No guarantees were codified that this trail would not be paved. A considerable length of the trail was paved with concrete recently in East Austin. The Holly Shores/Edward Rendon Master Plan showed only decomposed granite trails, not concrete or pavement. Again changes were made without stakeholder input. Runners are complaining that these trails are made only for bikes or vehicles—not for the original intent.
- Expedition School—in December 2019, a resolution to alter the Master Plan of Edward Rendon Sr. Park, to allow a private concession to the Expedition School and a huge dock covering one end of a lagoon, was quietly rushed through without the approval of any stakeholders who had spent years working on the Master Plan. They were neither notified or consulted.
- Zilker Vision Plan—This highly unpopular and environmentally devastating plan was what brought Free Zilker together. Under this plan, an “umbrella nonprofit” of major and smaller Not-for-Profits and for-profit concessions would promote and coordinate major development in Zilker Park, including up to three parking garages, a 5000‐capacity amphitheater on the Great Lawn, and a land bridge over Barton Springs Road. This is when most of us got clued into the vast ambitions and overreach of the local parks Not-for-Profits.
We seem to be at cross purposes with PARD. All one has to do is take a look at a heat map of the city to see how important are our green spaces. They are increasingly vital to our city’s attractiveness, liveability, and even its survival.
PARD seems intent on covering those green areas with revenue-producing concessions, parking garages, docks and traffic when what most people want and need are pristine green spaces.
Why is this happening? The simple answer is money; revenues from concessions and even alcohol sales which have been traditionally prohibited.
This is contrary to a time-honored tradition of common spaces—the one major equalizing force in societies. They are lands equally shared by all the people, not to be hoarded, monopolized, and sequestered by an elite few.
We must return to the Direct Service parks model and a more accountable, egalitarian use of our vital green spaces.
Signed,
Bertha Rendon Delgado, East Town Lake Neighborhood Citizens Association
Carol Stall, Deep Holly Advocates, Free Zilker Coalition
Cedar Stevens, Free Zilker Coalition Chair
Elisa Rendon, East Town Lake Neighborhood Citizens Association
Karen Kreps, Barton Springs swimmer, Free Zilker Coalition
Scott Cobb, Zilker Vision Plan Study Group, city lifeguard
Tanya Payne, Rewild Zilker
Teri Adams, city lifeguard, Zilker Vision Plan Study Group, Free Zilker Coalition
Dana Hegar, Free Zilker Coalition, Barton Springs swimmer.