At last night’s City Council meeting, the Council adopted the GreenPlay report “as-is”.
An amendment motion (by Kabir, Mackie) was made to accept the report with 3 comments was defeated by 2-4. Kabir, Mackie supported the amendment, whereas Kennedy, Rigg, Day, and Dennis opposed it. Then the Council voted to support the main motion (by Rigg-Kennedy) – “Accept the report As-Is”. It passed 4-2.  Kabir, Mackie voted in opposition. Councilmember Mitchell couldn’t join last night’s meeting due to a death in her family.

Personally, I felt very strongly to add 3 comments from the Council side, to address some deficiencies in the report and make it look more complete. Please see the comments I asked the Council to include here.

One particular deficiency I felt in the report was the lack of data used during the study period, as I noted in my comment #1. For example, the report could have provided a stronger and more accurate recommendation on future indoor facilities and programming needs by including facilities usage data. Specifically, College Park Community Center is the only community center within the city boundary, and GreenPlay should have collected the data of the usage and programming at this center over a period of its operation from the M-NCPPC, and use it in the study.

I commend GreenPlay for working on the study and coming up with recommendations to enhance the future recreational needs of our residents and seniors. We should also thank them for making some important edits to the latest version of the report to address some issues we discussed at our October 13 meeting.

However, it’s important to note that City used about $50,000 of taxpayers’ money on the report and, as a steward of that money, I felt that GreenPlay neglected to collect and use some very important data (in comment #1), and include other important information I noted in my comments #2 and 3.