Cooperative park efforts eyed to assist city, PCCS

After taking over the reins at Putnam County Comprehensive Services a few years back, Executive Director Andrew Ranck said he would often stare out the window of his Tennessee Street office, looking over at Robe-Ann Park and pondering a potential partnership.

“I looked out at that beautiful park,” he mused before the Park Board at its March meeting, “and said, ‘How can we be a part of that?’”

After recent discussions with city officials, Ranck and friends may have figured out how.

A two-phase proposal could see PCCS taking on the full responsibility of operating the concession stand at the Greencastle Aquatic Center with a number of its clients performing the necessary functions to run the stand. In addition, another proposal would provide one paid PCCS individual to do up to 500 hours of maintenance at Robe-Ann Park by working three hours a day (8-11 a.m.), Monday through Friday over the period April 1-Oct. 31

Those proposals could help eliminate concession stand staffing, ordering and preparation issues that helped put the park into the red last summer, while also providing manpower to do menial maintenance tasks like picking up trash and sticks, emptying trash barrels, sweeping out shelterhouses, and cleaning and restocking park restrooms. The thought is fulltime maintenance personnel would then have more time for mowing and trimming and other obligations at the various city parks.

For one thing, the timing is right. Not only has PCCS lost one of its training locations with the closing of the nearby local restaurant Charlie’s but it also has pulled back from a state-funded project of maintaining the rest areas along Interstate 70 near Plainfield after 10 years due to transportation issues and costs.

Tasks and lessons learned at those locations could be reclaimed through a partnership at the park, Ranck reasoned.

“These ideas weren’t created in a void,” the PCCS director assured. “We actually sat down with Rod (Park Director Weinschenk) and Mayor (Bill) Dory.”

The Park Board took no action on the proposals at its recent March meeting. Board member John Hennette made a motion to table the proposals until the April meeting, allowing for more time to investigate costs and other dynamics involved in such changes.

Proposed with the concession stand change is that PCCS be designated as the responsible party for the pool concession stand, purchasing all necessary food and drink items, paper goods and cleaning supplies. PCCS would determine which items to sell and the cost of each, while being responsible for preparation and sales of all foods to customers during hours of operation (12-7 p.m. seven days a week May 25-Aug. 6 as well as 4-7 p.m. Aug. 7-11 ).

That way, the pool concession stand would be operated at no cost to the city. Any profit would go to PCCS, while any loss would be incurred by the same.

“What kind of cost savings could we expect?” board member Hennette asked.

Beyond personnel costs, the Park Department spent $19,000 on the concession stand last season, Weinschenk noted.

“It would be a cost savings to the park, yes,” he added.

Mayor Dory noted that in discussions with PCCS, he has “taken the liberty of saying” that since PCCS is experimenting with the city, the first year would see no concession stand rental cost for the organization.

“We will potentially save in personnel costs,” the mayor said, along with “not having to purchase food products or (suffer) food product loss.”

It should also free up the assistant director -- a new one, Paige Zwick, has been hired -- to concentrate on marketing and running the pool.

PCCS expects to hire one manager and one assistant for daily operations of the pool concession stand, while utilizing PCCS individuals as interns in groups of four to learn about vocational skills and expectations, Ranck pointed out.

The concession stand menu would be simple “grab-and-go items” mostly, Ranck said, listing nachos, soft pretzels, popcorn, package ice cream novelties, hotdogs, chips and drinks as most likely.

In the maintenance proposal, meanwhile, PCCS would invoice the Park Department at a proposed rate of $15 an hour with hours not to exceed 500 without prior authorization by the Parks Department. Total seasonal cost would not exceed $7,500 with such prior authorization.

Park Board President Tim Trigg asked if the maintenance person PCCS eyes for the position would need supervision.

“No, not constant supervision,” Ranck said, noting that he or she would be a PCCS employee subcontracted to the park.

“We see it as a training opportunity, too,” Ranck said. “We can send over volunteer interns to do things like checking the restrooms throughout the day.”

Ranck said the timing for the idea is good as well since programs like PCCS are “under pressure from the federal government to get people out of work centers and into the community.”

Mayor Dory noted that the park proposal is “a bit of an experiment,” adding that since PCCS is willing to work with the city, he’s willing to “give it a try.”

Weinschenk agreed.

“I like the idea,” he said specifically of the maintenance help. “It frees up our staff from having to do that (initial daily clean-up) and they can move directly to maintenance.”

Mayor Dory also praised PCCS for the many good things it does within the community, many of which are behind the scenes and accomplished without public credit, he said.

He called the proposal “a great way to strengthen our partnership with PCCS.”

“They’re right across the street, I couldn’t think of a better partnership,” Dory concluded.