A citizen initiative

TheGlenEllynParkBench.blogspot.com

enjoy...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ted E.,

After reading your initial post, "New Commissioners/Political Activists Melissa Creech, Julia Nephew and Jay Kinzler were sworn in and welcomed to the Board by the incumbent Commissioners.", what does that make the incumbents? Are they to be called "lumps on a log", "commissioners just taking up space", "political couch potatoes" or just "the good ole' boys". I would hope that all of the commissioners are activists for the all of the village, not just certain factions. Glad to see from your blog that another war has started and that your blog is going to be a real "unbiased" version of what goes on at the PD. Do you sleep with Ed?

Wow! The first priority should be televising the board meetings. This looks like must-see-TV.

the offical meeting notes have even more interesting tidbits:


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Commissioner Kinzler commented that he and Commissioners Creech and Nephew looked at the budget very carefully and noticed that just the natural gas bill alone for platform tennis wasn’t covered by the dues charged for the number of people who use it. He asked how the Board came to the conclusion to spend money on platform tennis.
Commissioner Hess responded that there were many meetings where the Board discussed platform tennis.
Many programs don’t cover their costs. If the Board looked at the bottom line on all programs many of the senior programs would be gone.

Kinzler, Creech and Nephew have no idea what they are talking about. We got these goofballs on the PD board because of the threatened leveling of Ackerman "Weeds". What a nightmare.

We got or rather we voted for them because the previous PD board members had mismanaged the PD. Because the previous board did a terrible job of communicating and informing people what their plans where.

I like the idea of televising the meetings it does sound like they will be interesting.

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And are we sure that the Park Bench blog thingie is written by Creech, Nephew and Kinzler?

Nope, we now have dueling PD blogs, http://melissacreech.blogspot.com/.

I believe he was joking. He gets very sensitive when the new commissioners bring up anything negative about the platform tennis courts.

Do no one know this man by now?

Calling platform tennis a "pet project" is nonsense. Whose "pet" was it? What other outdoor activity is available during the 6 months of winter that we experience here? It is a fantastic year-round sport that can be played by people of all ages and skill levels. The problem is that no one but hard core players take advantage of the courts in Glen Ellyn because they did not build a viewing hut. It is a social game. If an adequate hut is built the games popularity in GE will explode. Look at other park districts that have good facilities, Winnetka (6 courts and the most used park district facility in the town) Hinsdale (4 courts at KLM with 2 more in the works and 2 other courts at a different location, and about 1,000 members!) If the proper facilities are constructed, platform will not only flourish, but may also be profitable. Leave them alone and they WILL cost you money. Kinzler's comments are myopic and dead wrong.

That insane, way out of human scale monolith of a “fieldhouse” the PD is constructing in Ackerman Park ought to satisfy any taxpayer's need for another capital expenditure.

After Maryknoll, Spring Avenue, the Main Street upgrade... No. You may not have your warming “hut.” In fact, you may not have anything more until 2035.

Learn to live with what you have. And turn off the gas and put on another sweater.

quote:

Originally posted by Fish:
What other outdoor activity is available during the 6 months of winter that we experience here?

Sledding, skating, x-country skiing, running, snowshoeing.

quote:

Originally posted by middlein87:

quote:

Originally posted by Fish:
What other outdoor activity is available during the 6 months of winter that we experience here?

Sledding, skating, x-country skiing, running, snowshoeing.

You forgot picking your nose and burping.

quote:

Originally posted by ackerman:
The Park District should be serving the community that supports it with their tax dollars. The PD should not in the business of finding a possible niche activity that most of it's residents don't participate in or are even familiar with.
Ok, I read somewhere on here it would be $350,000 for a warming hut? And you need a warming hut to make this thing profitable? Besides the extra marketing costs, how many years would it take to cover the $350,000 , let alone make a profit? And this profit would go where, it would be used to lower our taxes we pay the PD with? Yeah, right.
Sounds sort of like a pet project to me. Did we get rid of this pet in April? Hope so.

By providing its residents with recreational opportunities the PD IS serving its purpose. You may have read the hut will cost $350,000, but that too is nonsense.

Hundreds, Thousands you're kidding right. Not going to happen.

So at what point do we pull the plug on this. How much usage does platform tennis get and how much does it cost to operate. Obviously not every PD program has to be a money maker. But if its a drain maybe we should look into pulling the plug on it.

Well how many people actually use it.

Do we want to continue to throw good money after bad ?

To say well we built it now we have to continue to support it doesnt make a lot of sense.
Especially when we're talking about a program that is fairly expensive to run. Keeping those courts heated in a Chicago Winter is probably not cheap.

I realize that not all PD programs have to be self sufficient, but if you have an expensive program with little use then maybe you need to think about it.

Then we can also level Holes and Knolls?

Holes and Knolls should be a lot cheaper - or else should have a season pass option bundled with a swimming pool pass. Every time our family of 4 goes minigolfing and finishes 15 minutes after we start I think - man, this is expensive for 15 minutes. The kids love it and ask to go all the time, but I can't rationalize the expense.

I admit I don't know the cost for Platform Tennis. I'm going to bet that it is more expensive than say Tennis or basketball because of the heating.

I don't have a problem with the PD having some programs that don't make money. But those that do maybe should be looked at more closely.

Not a bad idea for Holes-n-Knolls problem with it, is its location. You can't see it from the street. And there is nothing else there.

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you can't see it from the street. And there is nothing else there.

Now now. There's that splash pad and that playground (the coolest, most dangerous playground in GE, by the way). So it is getting more exposure.

And don't forget the platform tennis. There's hundreds dozens several platform tennis players in GE that know that Holes n' knolls exists.

But seriously, I think the target market knows about holes and knolls. And I agree with Mamattorney - too expensive to play there often.

While I applaud Keith Schoen's many years of community service, his leaving was long overdue.