My thoughts on the Park and Rec Issues at the Selectman Meeting

  Well what I believed to be one issue which was the department heads all reporting to the Town Administrator/Manager and responsibility for properties pertaining to Park and recreation and changes to that committee and the Library Committee became two issues. The department head portion of this issue got fast tracked to the special town meeting. I think this needed more discussion and I completely disagreed with that vote.
  The argument for this change is the Park and Rec Committee meets once a month. That may be so, but the commissioners are visible at all the programs and even actively run some of these. Sal Ledda, Chuck Dello Iaccono, Dan Hart, Jim Maher and John Maida take there service to this town very seriously. They hired Bob Stanley, They all work well together and changing this is wrong. Park and Rec is one Dept in this town I can look at and say these guys have it right where many others don't. They also raise money for the Flag Day Parade and for the Pathfinders programs. This change would give the Town Manager/Administrator control of this money and that is not right. 
  It's bad enough our school system is lagging we shouldn't be doing something that could eventually effect programs for kids. I thought Sal and Dan both spoke passionately about Park and Recreation and the work they do and it was sincere. This town tends to try to fix too many things that aren't broken and don't focus on the things that truly are like the schools, like the lack of a senior center like the increasing property taxes. Park and Rec saw a need for special needs kids to have programs and raised money to fill that need. What message are we sending if we let an administrator who had nothing to do with raising this money decides not to spend it on these kids?
  Do what I'm starting to do, attend these meetings, get informed, be a part of this town. We need to start being all in or all will be lost. We already have people who want Dedham to be something it's not, do we need to lose the towns whole identity? I say no and I say now is the time to be heard.