Hopefully a sign of a turning tide.
For those who can't see the Twitter verse:
*****
I don't wish to denigrate anyone personally; I will say, I thought Janie's reign in parks was incredibly unsuccessful; that she wasn't an effective advocate for her department, which saw budgets depleted and needs go unmet throughout her tenure.
I do understand why people try to say some positive things to someone upon their departure; however, I really must take issue w/the list above.
Parks and Facilities Masterplan - A normative document, largely produced by third party consultants with guidance from staff, that by and large changes very little from what would have been done otherwise.
The Ravine Strategy - Almost entirely unfunded with no significant projects moving forward; it also wasn't necessary, as it largely rehashed and repackaged existing ideas and wish lists.
Parkland Strategy - Mostly unfunded/unimplemented
Forest Management Strategy - ditto
High Park Movement Strategy, as produced by staff was largely flushed down the toilet by Councillor Perks because staff ignored what the community wanted.
Centennial Masterplan - is actually partially funded, one of the few, but the plan itself wasn't really needed, staff already knew what they wanted to do, they just paid consultants to package it.
Toronto Island Masterplan - A complete waste of money, lacking a single working project, and containing a wish list so large that no mayor will ever fund it all in 20 years.
Most of the Community Centre projects identified pre-dated her time as head of Parks, though some do originate with her time as head of Recreation.
Of the Parks listed as accomplishments:
- College Park was poorly designed and executed
- Lillian MacGregor is decent, but was delivered quite late.
- Grange Park only came about because of third party donors and AGO
- Love Park was only delivered because of Waterfront Toronto and a design competition that end-ran Parks
Her tenure has simply not been a good one.
While not entirely her fault; a lack of proper funding was clearly an impediment to success; the department has simply not spent money particularly wisely, nor achieved even basic service delivery or maintenance on many occasions. Meanwhile relations between Parks and other City departments have deteriorated with Parks being generally viewed as unhelpful, uncooperative and slow.
I hope they scour the country and the world for a top tier, ambitious, driven bold head of Parks who will drive higher quality and rates of accomplishment.
The new head of PF&R will then have to be empowered to refresh much of their senior management team as well; and then afforded the necessary resources to achieve.
