As you may or may not heard, the city is considering new contractors to manage our city courses. It’s been a forgone conclusion that GreatLife will probably scoop up the contract simply because of the influence of it’s Whopper of a Founder, Tom Walsh.
I could care less. I don’t golf, use fitness centers, bowl or watch movies outside my home. As long as the next contractor can make the city some money from the courses, I’m happy.
But for a moment, let’s pretend that decision to pick GreatLife or Dakota Golf (again) was on the up and up. Who get’s to make the preliminary decision and pass the flaming football to council? Oh, the Parks board;
Following the calendar provided in the city’s official request for proposals, the park board’s committee set up to facilitate the process has been discussing the bids. Additional interviews with contending firms would take place Sept. 27-28, with “notification of conditional award†taking place Sept. 29.
I guess just reviewing all the proposals and bids and making a conditional award isn’t really that major of a decision. Remember when the Southside Snobs told the council during the debate over districting the parks board that ALL the major decisions were up to the council. Than why isn’t the council reviewing this RFP’s in a land use committee instead of letting a bunch of ‘unimportant’ volunteer board members do it?
Make no mistake, the Parks Board has a gob of power that they use under the direction of the Chief Lawn-mowing-Liar of the City, Parks Director Don Kearney.
Hopefully the next council will pass the Parks Board Districting ordinance. I would also make it go into affect within 4 years.