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Springs will leave parks director position vacant

May 6th, 2010, 10:10 am by

Interim City Manager Steve Cox

The city of Colorado Springs doesn’t plan to fill the position of director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services following the retirement of Paul Butcher, interim City Manager Steve Cox said recently.

“For now, we’re not going to fill that position,” Cox said. “We’re going to take a little time and evaluate the structure of that organization.”

Kim King, parks administration officer, and Kurt Schroeder, the city’s maintenance, trails and open space manager, will share management responsibilities, Cox said. Both will report to Nancy Johnson, assistant city manager, he said.

Butcher, 57, said he retired after 26 years with the city to spend more time with his family, but people with ties to the parks department said he was reorganized out of a job.

Paul Butcher, former director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services

“That’s not true,” Cox said. “Paul came to us, and he just said it was time.”

Cox said Butcher’s retirement created an opportunity for the city “to take a breath” and evaluate the parks department.

“One of the things that we’ve done – and this is almost from day one when Penny got here – was to downsize the management structure” of city government, Cox said, referring to former City Manager Penelope Culbreth-Graft.

“If there are opportunities to do that in the parks department (or any other department), we’ll certainly do it,” he said.

Posted in: City Administration • City employees • Parks • Recreation and Cultural Services • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Butcher and his can-do attitude will be missed, Cox says

April 23rd, 2010, 9:49 am by

As director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services, which was gutted in the 2010 budget, Paul Butcher had a big target on his back.

During budget discussions last year, Councilman Tom Gallagher even suggested that the city get rid of Butcher, who had been the parks director since 1994.

Butcher, a friendly and highly regarded administrator, won’t have to deal with the pressure anymore.

The 57-year-old is retiring. His last day is next Friday.

The city issued a press release today announcing his retirement, but Butcher gave The Gazette an exclusive interview yesterday.

Butcher said he and his wife, Paula, have been looking toward their future together and “feel spending more time with our family needs to become a top priority.”

(The word on the street is that the city is preparing a new organizational chart and that Butcher was going to be reorganized out of a job. Time will tell if that’s true.)

Even though Butcher saw the dismantling of his department in the past year, the city’s parks, recreation and cultural services have flourished under his leadership, the city said.

Some examples:

More than 4,600 acres of open space have been added, including Red Rock Canyon, Blodgett Peak, and Corral Bluffs.

Forty-eight neighborhood parks, encompassing 300 acres, have been developed.

The Julie Penrose Fountain at America the Beautiful Park and the Uncle Wilbur Fountain at Acacia Park were constructed.

A 40,000 square-foot Skate Park in Memorial Park was constructed;

The urban forest has expanded, growing in excess of 123,000 trees.

The Cottonwood Creek Recreation Center was constructed.

“We are going to miss Paul. We’ll miss his professional ‘can-do’ attitude; we’ll miss his dedication to the job; we’ll miss his commitment to community partnerships,” Steve Cox, interim city manager, said today in a statement.

“In particular, Paul has shown a remarkable ability to partner with community leaders to create tangible facilities we can all use, such as the El Pomar Youth Sports Complex and the Southeast YMCA,” Cox said.

As a volunteer, the city said in the news release, Butcher “was instrumental in the passage of the Trails, Open Space and Parks (TOPS) taxes in 1997 and 2003, raising more than $77 million dollars for park and open space acquisition.”

Butcher started working for the city in 1984 as a contract administrator.  He served in a variety of positions, including as capital improvements program coordinator and interim assistant city manager. Before joining the city, he worked for Penrose Hospital.

Butcher plans to live in Colorado Springs, spending time with his wife and four grandkids and “doing a variety of volunteer and community service work,” the city said.

Posted in: Budget • City employees • Parks • Recreation and Cultural Services • • • | Post a Comment »

Request to run community centers generates responses

March 1st, 2010, 1:01 pm by

A request for proposals to take over operations of four community centers that received only three months of funding under Colorado Springs’ 2010 budget drew interest.

But the city is refusing to identify who submitted responses or disclose how many responses it received by Friday’s deadline, saying it could jeopardize negotiations.

“With an RFP process, we don’t divulge any of that information at this point in time,” Curt DeCapite, the city’s procurement services manager, said today.

“It’s considered proprietary until we go through a selection and make a recommendation,” he said.

DeCapite would only say the city received “some” responses.

“A request for proposals is not just numbers. There’s financial statements that we require. There’s reference checks,” he said. “As we get into the evaluation process, we may sit down and negotiate with these vendors”

Paul Butcher, director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services, which oversees the community centers, referred questions to DeCapite.

A committee will evaluate the proposals and then make a recommendation “to move forward with someone if they met all the requirements,” DeCapite said.

“I can’t release who’s on the committee either,” he said. “Here’s why: If people who submitted a proposal know who’s on the committee, they’ll lobby them.”

Councilman Sean Paige, who advocated for three months of funding for the Deerfield Hills, Hillside, Meadows Park and Westside community centers, which were initially slated to be closed under the 2010 budget, said he didn’t put a lot faith in the RFP process.

Paige, who is spearheading an accompanying effort to develop private partnerships to keep the centers open, wanted the city to streamline the process and relax some of the requirements. But officials said certain standards had to be met. The 24-page request for proposals required a pile of paperwork, including five years of financial statements.

“I have talked to at least one potential partner that found it intimidating and didn’t participate for that reason,” Paige said.

Posted in: Budget • Recreation and Cultural Services • • • | Post a Comment »