potrero view

August 2009

Recreation Centers Hit Hard by Budget Cuts

By Ben Terrall

Layoffs of 72 full-time recreation director positions – representing many more individuals who work part-time – by the City’s Recreation and Park Department (RPD) has hit Southeast San Francisco hard.  Last Spring speaker after speaker during public comments at Board of Supervisor hearings on RPD cuts described directors as big brothers and sisters, and sometimes father and mother figures, for scores of at-risk youth who have few other positive role models to support them.

According to one RPD employee, who asked not to be named, the City was “setting us up to fail.  They take away personnel, they switch hours and close facilities.  We don’t have enough people working, and we can’t do everything that needs to be done to serve the public.  At meetings they had, management didn’t listen to the community.  They had their own agenda. Why did they put a shift on Sunday morning in the Bayview? If they had asked staffers we would have told them that people go to church on Sunday morning in this neighborhood.”  Numerous RPD staff pointed to recreation directors who, like public school teachers, paid for equipment and other materials for RPD programs out of their own pockets.  

Daisy Austin, a 16 year RPD employee was recently laid off from her job at Bayview-based Joseph Lee Recreation Center, though she continues to volunteer there.  Austin, a firm but sweet 58 year old African-American with two children and eight grandchildren, said that it was very hard to move on, but that her faith gave her strength.  The oldest of ten kids, Austin said she’s “been a caregiver my entire life.”

During the months before she was laid-off, living with the likelihood of being let go made it “hard to come to work and stay positive for the kids,” said Austin.  At the center Austin led after school programs, and worked with older residents.  Her aerobics class served people from age 16 to 65. Grandmothers brought their charges, and mothers would hang-out with their daughters. “That’s the bonding time,” explained Austin.  She used her aerobics class to teach the importance of maintaining a “healthy mind, body and soul,” and is now looking for a new space in the Bayview to teach the class.

In her cooking classes, which catered to teenagers who were used to instant food and had never baked anything from scratch, Austin taught basic nutrition and healthy eating habits.  Cooking was also a way to help youth hone their math skills.  “It’s more than a job, we’re surrogate parents; they call me Auntie Daisy or Grandma Daisy,” she said.  While she collects unemployment and looks for another job, Austin is taking an online course in fitness and wellness, towards certification as a nutritional health instructor.

According to Sophie Turnipseed, an RPD employee who still works at the center, “you can’t run it with a skeleton staff.  It’s hard to be in three places at once.”  “I miss the kids,” said Austin.

Eleven year old Tanysha Turnipseed, a frequent visitor to Joseph Lee Recreation Center, said Austin was “fun to hang out with,” and helped her with art projects.  Austin took Turnipseed and other Bayview youth to the Mission to look at murals, and brought in Dewey Crumper, who painted a mural on the original center, which was recently recreated, for a visit.  “Daisy is strict,” Turnipseed said, but “I miss having her around.”

“The retention and support of our rec centers needs to be one of our highest priorities,” said District 5 Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.  According to Mirkarimi, restoration of “laid-off Rec and Park Directors” should be part of ongoing budget negotiations.  “Investing in Rec and Park service is one of the great equalizers” as the RPD facilities are used by “people of all classes,” he said.

Brando Rogers, an RPD employee and Potrero Hill resident walks her dog through Jackson Playground every day.  She described RPD facilities as places where people of different backgrounds can meet and engage in activities together.  And the recreation centers are “safe sites;” when there is shooting or other violence, kids know they can go to there and be okay.  “Potrero and South of Market Rec Centers both function that way,” said Rogers.

According to community activist Troy Christensen fees for park services are inevitable given current budget shortfalls, but that “we need to protect low and middle income people.”  Christensen noted that if new fees are put in place, “60 percent of kids in Soma Rec Center programs” would not be able to participate without “a low-income exclusion.”

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