County Approves Sketchy Parks Takeover

One of the most controversial topics for the Guilford County Board of Commissioners this year has been whether or not the county should take over the management and operation of the parks system – but no one would have ever known it was a heated subject from watching the board's Thursday, Nov. 1 meeting. At that meeting, when the commissioners adopted guidelines for the takeover that's set to happen on Jan. 1, no commissioner raised so much as a peep of opposition.

Currently, the county outsources parks operations and management to Greensboro, Gibsonville, Jamestown and others, but that's all set to change on the first of the year when the county plans to hire the employees who currently work at the county's parks and form a Guilford County parks and recreation department.

The county takeover will affect five of the county's seven parks: Bur-Mil, Hagan-Stone, Gibson, Southwest and Northeast parks. The operation of Guilford-Mackintosh Park, currently handled by Burlington, and Triad Park, which is jointly owned with and run by Forsyth County, remain unchanged.

At the Nov. 1 meeting, the board took another step down that road when it adopted newly formed guidelines regarding the benefits packages for those park employees they plan to hire. Park workers have been critical of Guilford County over the last several months, saying the county had never contacted them in any way or given them any official word about the takeover. They said the only information they were getting about their future employment with the county was what they read in the newspapers.

At the meeting, the motion passed on an 8 to 2 vote with no discussion. Commissioner Billy Yow, one of the most vocal critics of the takeover, was running late due to problems related to his well-drilling business, and Yow arrived after the motion passed.

Yow said he had asked both Commissioners Bill Bencini and Paul Gibson – who have also been critical of the parks takeover – to get the board to hold off on the discussion until he arrived. However that didn't happen.

Bencini said after the meeting that Yow had asked him to delay the vote; but, Bencini said, he didn't discuss the issue or try to get it held because the writing was on the wall. He said he and other opponents felt certain there were plenty of votes to move forward with the takeover, and that it would have been a futile battle.

Bencini and Gibson were the two votes against the takeover.

The motion called for the board to approve a resolution "outlining employment transitions of not more than 30 full time positions and applicable employment terms and conditions for purposes of 1) probationary period waiver, 2) longevity payment calculation, 3) sick and vacation balance transfers, and 4) certain limited eligibility for retiree health insurance in relation to parks employees who are scheduled to transition to Guilford County."

At least now, after the vote, park workers who are set to come on the county's payroll have answers to some of their questions. According to the motion adopted Nov. 1, the new county employees who have been working for other local governments to maintain Guilford County's parks – and who were hired into those jobs before July 1, 2011– will receive credit for their previous employment for the purposes of Guilford County longevity bonuses and vacation time accrual.

Also, employees who transfer to Guilford County won't be required to go through a probationary period as other new employees must do. In addition, the county will credit the park employees for sick leave time and parks staff will be eligible to use that time immediately upon being added to the county payroll.

Guilford County acquired Bur-Mil Park from Burlington Industries in the early '90s and over the years acquired or built the other parks in the system. Guilford County has always contracted out the management and operations to other local governments, and currently one person oversees the county's seven parks. Even some commissioners who voted to adopt the park employee guidelines – such as Commissioners Kirk Perkins and Mike Winstead – have expressed real trepidation about the move.

While no commissioner raised objections at the meeting, commissioners critical of the plan did have plenty to say afterward.

"We've never run parks in the history of the county," Bencini said, "and now suddenly we're experts in it?"

Bencini said that, when the 2012-2013 budget was adopted in June, and the parks takeover was tacked onto that budget at the last minute, the board only did so with a stipulation, proposed by Yow, that county staff first bring back a detailed analysis of the cost of running each of the parks.

County staff did make a presentation in a work session on Thursday, August 9, but Bencini and other commissioners say that staff never came close to answering their questions.

Bencini said last week that he thinks Guilford County is rushing headlong into uncharted territory, and, while some county officials expect to save money on the move, Bencini predicts it won't be long into 2013 before the board has a painful realization that running and maintaining a parks system with no experience or administrative staff to do so isn't as quite as easy as writing pie in the sky numbers down on paper.

"I just don't think this board knows how to deal with reality," Bencini said.

He said the half-page of information provided to the board in their information packets for the Nov. 1 meeting didn't begin to address the true depth of the logistical issues involved in taking over operation of the parks.

"We had 43 pages of a second draft of an agreement on a new fire engine, and 30-some pages on the second version of a change in the vicious animal law," Bencini said, "but we had a half page on taking over the parks."

Bencini said county officials are hopeful they'll save money because the county will no longer pay cities and towns a roughly 8 percent management fee. However, he added, the county officials pushing for the parks takeover don't understand some key principles of trying to save money with economies of scale. Bencini said that, in areas where local governments manage and operate parks efficiently, they generally have workers who specialize in certain functions who travel from park to park performing similar specific duties in each park.

However, in this case, Bencini said, Guilford County intends to keep the current model in place, and keep respective employees at the parks where they're now working. He said he's willing to bet that's going to be a very inefficient system that, in the end, costs Guilford County more than it's paying now to run and maintain the parks. He also said that, in other ways, it was hard to benefit from economies of scale with only five parks to manage.

Yow was also critical of the move toward taking over the parks, and he said after the meeting that he had concerns about another parks' related issue on the agenda that night: Guilford County also voted at the Nov. 1 meeting to spend $117,000 for a software package and eight computers to begin implementing a new reservation system for ballparks, picnic shelters and other park facilities. Instead of a phone-based reservation system with actual people, the county will switch to an online "recreations management" system.

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That item was on the consent agenda – a list of motions generally reserved for routine housekeeping-type matters and the motion passed along with things like the approval of the minutes of past meetings.

Yow said that, if he'd arrived at the meeting in time, he would have pulled the item off the consent agenda to discuss it.

Yow has been a constant critic of the Guilford County Information Services (IS) Department – which, in just about every other business and government, is called Information Technology, or IT.

Yow said he's frightened to think what might happen once the county's IS Department gets hold of the parks' reservation system.

"People might think they're reserving a picnic shelter but there ain't no telling what they'll get – they might end up reserving the Blue Room," Yow said, referring to a frequently used county meeting room on the first floor of the Old Guilford County Court House.

The Blue Room would be less than ideal, to say the least, for a family outing.

Yow only has a couple of weeks left on the board, but he said that, up until the very end, he continues to be astonished by the actions of this board.

Yow said, "Anything that makes sense is far and beyond the ability of this board; that's what I've learned in my 12 years as a Guilford County commissioner."

At the meeting, the commissioners also unanimously approved a new social media policy.

Don Campbell, an Emergency Services supervisor who chaired the county committee that helped form the guidelines, made the presentation to the board. That committee included members from different county departments.

Campbell said it was to Guilford County's advantage to begin using more social media to communicate with its citizens, and the challenge of his committee was to "set up boundaries" as the county gets into the use of social media. He said many younger citizens are using social media as their primary mode of communication, and he said that would no doubt be a lifelong practice for those users.

He also said that, in the past, when the county has wanted to get information to citizens, it has sent press releases to the media and then had to rely on the press to get the word out. However, using social media such as Facebook and Twitter, he said, the county wouldn't be as dependent on local television stations and newspapers.

"It really gives us a direct line to our citizens," he said.

He said social media is a low-cost form of communication with many benefits, but he warned there were potential pitfalls.

During Campbell's PowerPoint presentation, he showed some newspaper headlines from stories of government employees who ended up in hot water due to their inappropriate use of social media. Two of those headlines read, " Officer fired after posting about ticket" and, "Teacher fired for Facebook snooping."

The new county policy, unanimously adopted by the commissioners at the meeting, states, "Employees should not co-mingle their personal and professional lives when administering social media sites on behalf of the County." Also, "There must be a business necessity for employees to have access to social media on County Computers or other applicable devices."

The rules states that "good judgement" must be used at all times and adds, "it's a good practice for employees to consider that their supervisor, family members and peers may read everything they post."

The policy bans any postings that embarrass coworkers or supervisors, and it forbids county employees from posting confidential, medically sensitive or proprietary information. It also states that the content on each social media site will be monitored regularly to assure that county employees are following the rules.

According to the policy, "If an employee's social media presence shows an apparent connection to Guilford County, they are to make it clear that the views expressed on the social media platform are theirs alone and do not represent the views of Guilford County."

Campbell didn't mention Guilford County Register of Deeds Jeff Thigpen, but Thigpen maintains a thriving personal Facebook page on which he sometimes posts items related to the Register of Deeds office. For instance, in the past, he's used his page to get the word out that the deeds office was closed due to inclement weather. That same Facebook page includes many political and personal postings, and there's a link to the county's website. However, Thigpen does make it clear that his Facebook page is a personal page.

There is, in addition, an official Guilford County Facebook page for the Register of Deeds office, and, while Thigpen's own page has a very impressive 5,184 friends, the official Register of Deeds Facebook page has only one friend, Thigpen.

After the Nov. 1 meeting, one county official said Thigpen didn't need to lose any sleep about the new county policy: "Jeff can do what he likes – he's elected," she said.

At the meeting, the board also approved a tax-exempt loan for $454,000 for the Alamance Community Fire District to purchase a new fire truck, and the commissioners adopted a new policy that gives the county manager the right to exempt special events put on by area nonprofits from paying fees and other charges that the county would otherwise collect for such an event.

At the end of the meeting, the commissioners held a two-hour closed session to discuss a personnel matter as well as the acquisition of real estate. Sheriff BJ Barnes and other Sheriff's Department officials were in the closed session with the commissioners. The county has been in negotiations with Koury Corp. to buy two buildings in a corporate park just south of I-40 for future expansion of the Sheriff's Department. No action was taken when the board came out of the closed session.

The next commissioners meeting, on Thursday, Nov. 15, will be the last scheduled meeting before a smaller nine-member Board of Commissioners takes over running the county and some newly elected commissioners are sworn in.

That is a truly historic event because the current 11-member board structure – which has meant Guilford County had the largest board of commissioners in the state – was set up by Democrats in 1992 in an attempt to assure Democratic control of the board. That was successful as, for the last 20 years, with the exception of two years in the '90s, the board has had a Democratic majority.