Welcome Your Members of Congress
Courtesy of NRPA
The 118th Congress is underway, which means now is a great time to reach out to new and returning members of Congress and offer yourself up as a resource to their staff.
As a park and recreation professional, as well as their constituent, it is vital that your members of Congress hear from you early and often. It’s important that they know about the critical work that you and your agency do every day to enhance the quality of life for the community members in their district.
You also can take this opportunity to invite your members of Congress to come visit your agency and see this great work for themselves! Establishing a relationship with your elected officials helps build support for your agency, and a simple welcome message can go a long way.
Read more:
https://www.nrpa.org/our-work/advocacy/advocacy-engage/welcome-members-of-the-118th-congress/
A Symbiotic Relationship
Courtesy of Parks and Recreation Business
By Sara Thompson
To make cities more resilient, park planners and designers need to look beyond the typical stormwater requirements when thinking about public spaces. How can parks solve larger, community-wide stormwater problems while still accommodating recreational needs?
Located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, the two-acre Wightman Park takes about 30 acres of runoff from the neighborhood and uses most of the site’s square footage to capture more than 400,000 gallons per storm event. A highly collaborative process led to additional funding and a successful project partnership between the city of Pittsburgh Department of Public Works and the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. The result is a park with layers of functions, where green infrastructure is truly integrated within recreation, becoming part of the user’s experience.
Read more:
https://www.parksandrecbusiness.com/articles/a-symbiotic-relationship
Life jackets credited for more boaters surviving accidents in Pennsylvania
Courtesy of GoErie.com
By Brian Whipkey
About 40% more boaters are surviving accidents in Pennsylvania since a winter life-jacket requirement was implemented 10 years ago. The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission's boating accident data reveals that while the number of boating accidents during the cold weather months has remained comparable over the past decade, fatalities have decreased from 58% in 2012 to 17% in 2022.
Read more:
https://www.goerie.com/story/sports/outdoors/2023/01/25/boating-safety-pennsylvania-pa-fish-boat-commission-life-jackets/69834205007/
Parks and Rec as Political Legacy for Philadelphia's Mayor
Courtesy of Governing
By Jared Brey
The renovation at 8th and Diamond is one of dozens of projects funded partly through Philadelphia’s Rebuild initiative, a signature effort by Mayor Jim Kenney to overhaul the city’s neighborhood parks, recreation centers and libraries. The initiative was originally billed as a long-overdue investment in neighborhood assets, backed by $300 million in bonds and more than $100 million from local philanthropic foundations. Kenney pegged his legacy to the program from the outset, proposing and eventually passing the nation’s biggest soda tax to raise money for the repairs. It was an idea that put public space at the very heart of city life, and that framed caring for public space as a central task of city government.
City leaders say they’ve made strides in making public investments more equitable. More than 62 percent of Rebuild’s contracts for construction and professional services have gone to minority- and women-owned businesses (MWBEs). The precedent that Rebuild has set for prioritizing capital projects based on neighborhood needs has become more commonplace in cities around the country, and officials say the program is well positioned to outlast the Kenney administration and be continued, or even expanded, by the next mayor.
Read more:
https://www.governing.com/community/parks-and-rec-as-political-legacy-for-philadelphias-mayor
The “Yes” Garden
Courtesy of Parks and Recreation Business
By Charlotte Tonsor and Milton Hime
TEXAS - The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center opened in 1995 on a 42-acre site on the southwestern outskirts of Austin, Texas. As the state’s arboretum and botanical garden, its mission is to study, protect, and promote native plants. Thus began the planning for the Luci and Ian Family Garden as a place specifically designed for kids to interact with the natural world and Texas’ native plants.
Read more:
https://www.parksandrecbusiness.com/articles/the-yes-garden
Nature As Art
Courtesy of Parks and Recreation Business
By Alana Tucker
How do people engage with nature? Are they so far removed from it in their daily lives that it has become impossible? Consider one way that the conversation can begin: nature as art. By merging the natural with the created world, we can allow for more conversation around what constitutes a human life and how to preserve and enhance it. Here are a few examples of creative celebrations of trees from around the United States and the rest of the world...
Read more:
https://www.parksandrecbusiness.com/articles/nature-as-art
Match requirements prevent rural and low-capacity communities from accessing climate resilience funding
Courtesy of Headwaters Economics
More than 60% of federal resilience funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law requires a local match, with an additional 13% requiring a match under certain conditions.
Requirements for matching funds have been included in federal funding programs to promote economic efficiency and ensure communities have “skin in the game.” In practice, however, they can impose insurmountable burdens on communities, creating disadvantages for rural and lower-capacity communities that cannot afford the required match.
Previous research has demonstrated how scoring criteria, the benefit-cost analysis, reimbursement models, and other application requirements create inequities in federal funding distributions. Local match requirements compound these inequities.
Read more:
https://headwaterseconomics.org/equity/match-requirements/