Recreation Centers

At a community forum led by City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young on Wednesday night, residents expressed concerns over a variety of issues, including the parks and recreation department. The group of about 60 residents gathered in the Baltimore City Community College's Liberty Campus auditorium to ask a panel of city officials about issues including blighted houses, dirt bike laws, attracting new retail businesses to their neighborhoods and the potential closure of city recreation centers.

Baltimore City Councilman Nick Mosby said he is trying to set up a community meeting, possibly next week, to discuss the closing of the Roosevelt Park Recreation Center for up to a month to repair a broken water line. The city Department of Recreation and Parks closed the Roosevelt Park center at Falls Road and West 36th Street on March 28 after the kitchen drainage pipe broke, said spokeswoman Kia McLeod. A sign on the front door says, "Center closed until further notice due to mechanical repair emergencies.

Ten city recreation centers in areas with "high concentrations of at-risk youth" will remain open for extended hours throughout the summer to provide a haven for children. The governor's Office of Crime Control and Prevention will spend about $86,000 in overtime pay for staffers to keep the centers open for three extra hours from Tuesdays through Fridays for one month beginning next week. "These funds will help keep neighborhood kids off the streets, giving them a positive and safe atmosphere to stay during those hot summer nights," said Gov. Martin O'Malley in a statement.

Inside the former Barclay Recreation Center on Saturday, the smell of fumes filled the air as a band of volunteers spent the morning putting on a fresh coat of paint in anticipation of its reopening under new management later this year. The city's Department of Recreation and Parks shut down the center last August after 32 years and handed it over to the neighboring Barclay Elementary and Middle School. Volunteers from the area finally started working earlier this year to get the facility back up and running.

A day after a hearing with Recreation and Parks officials, residents and City Council members were questioning the mayor's plans for consolidating and renovating or closing the city's 55 recreation centers. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has said that two dozen centers could be turned over to private operators or closed at the end of December. At the hearing, Bill Tyler, chief of recreation, said his agency's objective was to keep all the centers open with their full hours and staff.

Amid warnings that the city is operating nearly twice as many recreation centers as it can afford to properly staff, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday endorsed a consultant's report that recommends closing as many as eight city recreation centers and consolidating others.At the same time, however, Mr. Schmoke said he would like to keep more recreation centers open on Saturdays to give children who are not in school someplace to go."I can tell you I'm a big proponent of having centers open on Saturdays, but we can't do that and maintain" all the rec centers the city now operates, the mayor said.

The proposal was supposed to enrich the programming at the Roosevelt Recreation Center in Hampden, city officials and social service providers said. College students were to be brought in as tutors at the center's already popular after-school program. Another bonus: Instructors from Baltimore City Community College would be at the disposal of those studying to take the General Educational Development test. But some particularly vocal Hampden residents saw only drawbacks, decrying the plan as a takeover of the facility - an illustration of the challenge facing city recreation officials who want to supplement their tight budgets with nonprofit assistance.

/TC Saying increased recreational programs are more effective than curfews, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday announced that 33 city recreation centers and 23 swimming pools will have expanded hours immediately in hopes of keeping idle youths off the streets.Mr. Schmoke, who has opposed curfews in recent weeks, said the new hours should offer new activities for people 14 years old and older."Our studies show that more recreation programs are better than curfews," the mayor said yesterday as he stood on the athletic field at the Liberty Recreational Center on Maine Avenue in Northwest Baltimore.

Faced with competition from better-equipped Police Athletic Leagues and a shrinking city budget, Baltimore's recreation centers are on track to shut down completely or offer children deteriorating facilities and broken-down equipment.To fix the problem, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke is ordering the department to pay more of its own way.Schmoke has assembled a 12-member task force of city leaders, private citizens and business executives to figure out how the Department of Recreation and Parks can generate money.

Former Mayor Clarence H. "Du" Burns yesterday proposed charging fees at more city recreation centers as an alternative to closing them completely -- something he said incumbent Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has been all too willing to do.Stepping up his campaign to oust Mr. Schmoke in the Sept. 12 Democratic primary, Mr. Burns said the city should convert some existing rec centers into specialized facilities that charge a fee for programs such as swimming clinics or basketball instruction. The income from the fees would allow the city to subsidize the other recreation centers.

Baltimore's recreation chief Bill Tyler is leaving city government to work in Montgomery County, city officials said Friday. Tyler, who earned $94,000 annually, was in charge of implementing Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's plan to consolidate recreation centers — closing and privatizing some — in an effort to cut costs while better focusing on the recreation centers that would remain open. Tyler's last day in Baltimore is Feb. 15. He will be the Southern Parks Division Chief of Montgomery Parks, officials said.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has hired a new director of recreation and parks, choosing an experienced manager who has headed similar agencies in three cities. Ernest W. Burkeen Jr., 64, who previously ran recreation and parks departments in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Detroit, will begin in Baltimore Dec. 17, the mayor is scheduled to announce Tuesday. "Ernest Burkeen is a nationally respected leader in his field with a great track record of success improving parks and recreational opportunities for urban communities," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement.

Ask any of the attendees of the pet first-aid and CPR class in Anne Arundel County why they would take such a course and each has the same response: Pets are like family, and you take care of family. "You never know when you might need it," said Nicole Angermier of Harwood, who attended because of her boxer, Diesel. The 21/2-hour class at the South County Recreation Center in Harwood teaches owners to provide emergency aid to their pets before taking them in for veterinary care.

As a mother of four, I agree with City Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young and others that young people today are under tremendous stress in dealing with criticism, peer pressure, physical and emotional abuse and other forces of negativity ("Programs, not jail cells, for teenagers," Oct. 7). Instead of building more jails to put troubled youngsters into, someone should find a way to reach out and allow them to talk through their problems. I once thought like many people that these youth were up to no good.

The developer of a five-acre, mixed-use development at the southwest corner of the intersection of West Cold Spring Lane and Interstate 83 is considering adding a fifth floor of residential units to the project. "A transit-oriented development should have a lot of density," said Judy Siegel, chair of the Linthicum-based Landex Companies, after a presentation to Baltimore's Urban Design and Architectural Review Panel on Thursday. It was the second time that early-stage plans for the development, at 2001 W. Cold Spring Lane, were shown to the panel.

At the Crispus Attucks rec center Wednesday, young children were sprawled on mats watching "The Cat in the Hat" while dreamily waving their small feet in the air. Nearby, older children bounced around a basketball court or rehearsed their parts in a presentation for parents. Their performance will mark much more than the end of summer camp. After more than 40 years of operation in West Baltimore's Madison Park neighborhood, Crispus Attucks is slated to close this month - one of at least four centers that will be shuttered under the city's long-planned overhaul of its recreation facilities.

Baltimore mayoral candidate Carl Stokes is calling for a $1-per-ticket tax on Camden Yards sporting events to help pay for city recreation centers. Standing outside the Tuerk House rehabilitation center in West Baltimore, the former city councilman offered the idea as part of his crime-fighting plan. Stokes noted that during the past two years, the city has closed 18 recreation centers, choosing instead to turn over many of the duties to the Police Athletic League. Baltimore has slashed $15 million from the city parks and recreation budget in the past three years, services that can help prevent crime, Stokes said.

It was refreshing to read Thomas F. Schaller's commentary about the burden of America's superpower status ("America should give up its role as lone superpower," July 25). Mr. Schaller was a bit too reserved in his criticism, however. While he points out that our military budget dwarfs all others, he falls into that trap of attributing it to "defense spending. " The Defense Department, which used to be called the Department of War, is actually involved in offensive operations. The invasions of Grenada, Panama and Iraq were classic examples of warmongering that had nothing to do with defending the country.

Having read your recent article about the problems experienced by the Department of Public Works' water pipe repairs, I feel funding for the department this should be a top city priority ("Water renewal is long overdue," July 22). As mayor, Martin O'Malley transferred millions of dollars from DPW funds to the Baltimore City schools. After reading about the test scores for Baltimore City's schools, I don't see where the money has improved the children's education. Maybe their teachers are overpaid and under-worked.