Denver Parks and Recreation director Jolon Clark on Tuesday responded to criticism for a series of controversial changes that sent local businesses and community groups scrambling.
In recent months, Denver Parks and Recreation stopped renting pool spaces to private groups, including a queer swim team; replaced a popular food insecurity nonprofit in Globeville; and ended its decades-long partnership with a boat and bicycle rental company.
Denver City Council members expressed concern over those decisions and others as Clark spoke before a committee. Clark said each situation went through an evaluation process that ultimately concluded that change was necessary.
But he admitted that communication with vendors and community groups was poor.
“Obviously we wouldn't have so many questions and media coverage and be here talking about it had we done a better job of communicating,” Clark said.
Council members criticized the department.
Several council members invoked the Birdseed Collective, the longtime nonprofit that operated a food pantry in the Globeville Recreation Center. In October, they were told their space would be taken over by the Denver Dream Center, a nonprofit that works with youth, people exiting prison and homeless people.
“They've always been a really thoughtful partner who've been able to go into Globeville-Elyria-Swansea and help speak in a trauma-informed way for the community and be able to have those deeper community connections than I feel like the Dream Center has,” Council President Amanda Sandoval said.
The transition hasn’t been smooth. Despite assurances that the Dream Center would start operating by Jan. 1, Denver City Council has yet to be presented with the lease.
District 7 Councilmember Darrell Watson, who appeared to get emotional before his questions, asked for more clarity on why several neighborhood swim teams, including the Swimming Queers United in Denver, have been kicked out of city-owned lanes.
“The recreation team made a decision to be able to open up more swim lessons that ate into the time that we had available to permit out for those private uses of our pool, many of them nonprofit and great organizations, to open up those hours so that we could do swim lessons. And we were able to add almost 150 new swim lesson spots this session,” Clark said.
He added that Parks and Rec is meeting with swim teams to discuss a “new fee structure” that could see swim teams rent out pools during slower hours at a rate that covers the city’s costs.
Councilmember Stacie Gilmore, who has been a staunch critic of the department since her husband, Scott Gilmore, was laid off last year, questioned whether Clark was moving to squeeze profits out of the city’s recreation spaces, in reference to its decision to end its partnership with Wheel Fun Rentals and take over rental operations at Washington and City Park.
Clark responded: “When we have the capacity to do that inside the city and retain that revenue, whether it's [going toward] paying city employees [or] that other dollars within our budget can go to other places and we can invest in more things that have a community benefit, then yes, that is also a benefit.”
He also said it is rare for the city to take over for-profit operations, pointing to upcoming contracts where the parks department selected third-party vendors.
Clark acknowledged that communication has been poor.
Representatives of the swim teams, the Birdseed Collective and Wheel Fun Rentals all said the city gave short notice of its decision.
Birdseed Collective was originally told to vacate the premises within a week before getting a two-month extension. Wheel Fun Rental’s owner, Joshua Catron, said he was told by the city his contract wouldn’t be renewed after he had already spent money repairing equipment.
“When are we communicating what is the right amount of time? And we probably have missed the mark there,” Clark said. “And so I appreciate you bringing that up and that is something that we will endeavor to improve on.”
