With a new executive director in place, the Memphis Park Commission takes a critical look at its mission.

by Debbie Gilbert

unning an urban park system is, well, no walk in the park.

That's true for any medium-to-large city, but especially so in this one, where the Memphis Park Commission has jurisdiction over a vast assortment of properties and programs. These include:

180 parks, 7 golf courses, 8 tennis complexes, 17 swimming pools, 7 senior-citizen centers, 26 community centers, a center for the handicapped, 32 after-school programs, 2,260 athletic teams, a children's theatre, the Memphis Zoo, Memphis Botanic Garden, Mud Island, the fairgrounds (including the Liberty Bowl Stadium and Tim McCarver Stadium), the Memphis Museum System (including the Pink Palace, Lichterman Nature Center, and the Mallory-Neely and Magevney homes), and the McKellar Lake Marina. The commission is also responsible for maintaining 100 miles' worth of median strips on divided streets such as North Parkway.

Keeping track of all this real estate is complicated enough under normal circumstances. And if there seems to be no one in charge, it can be an invitation to chaos.

At the end of 1995, for reasons never fully explained, Memphis Mayor W.W. Herenton fired Park Commission executive director Bob Brame along with two other key employees, commission deputy director Charles Lucas and Mud Island general manager Ann Ball. There were no replacements waiting in the wings, and Herenton did not name an interim director. For eight months, the parks division was essentially rudderless. Many of its day-to-day decisions were made by the Park Commission board, a panel of five unpaid, mayor-appointed advisers chaired by advertising executive John Malmo.

During this period of uncertainty, the Memphis City Council muddied the waters further by engaging in a power struggle with the Park Commission board. After the board turned down the council's directive to build a senior citizens' center in Overton Park, the council imposed a moratorium on funding any new park projects. The impasse lasted about two months, during which time the two entities also wrangled over whether to buy the former Whitehaven Country Club and convert it to a city-operated golf course. Councilman Jerome Rubin, whose district includes Whitehaven, pushed hard for the project, but the board argued that the city didn't need another golf course.

Eventually the funding deadlock was resolved, but months later the council made a startling proposal: Why not get rid of the Park Commission board? After all, no other city division has to answer to a group of citizen advisers. Council members said the board had outlived its usefulness; opponents of the idea said elimination of the board would give the council too much political power.

On top of all the bickering over who was in charge, an audit in the spring of 1996 had revealed that the city was losing more than $200,000 in annual revenues because the commission wasn't bothering to collect fees. (For example, the Memphis Chicks baseball team hadn't paid the utility bills for Tim McCarver Stadium, and music festivals hadn't paid for the use of Tom Lee Park.)

Into this atmosphere of confusion and contention stepped Wayne Boyer, the new executive director of the Memphis Park Commission. He came here from Davenport, Iowa, where he had served 19 years in a similar position. This wasn't the first time he'd taken a job under less than ideal circumstances; he assumed the Davenport directorship after his predecessor was gunned down by the son of a disgruntled employee.

Nothing so dramatic marked Boyer's arrival in Memphis last summer. He eased into the job without fanfare, taking time to assess the Park Commission and pinpoint its strengths and weaknesses.

"The system's biggest asset is the people -- both the employees and the citizens," he says. "We also have a good base of resources to work from. But there were some problems I noticed right off the bat: lack of organization, lack of planning, lack of vision. As for our facilities, many of them need renovations and a rethinking of what they should be."

That's why one of Boyer's top priorities is to complete a parks master plan by October 1997. The city has allocated $200,000 for the study, which is being done by local landscape architects Ritchie Smith and Associates (who also drafted the Overton Park master plan about a decade ago) and Philadelphia-based park-system planners Wallace Roberts & Todd.

"The plan will give us a road map for the next 10 years," says Boyer. "There's never been a comprehensive plan before -- no one's ever looked at the needs of the community and asked, `Where do we want to go?' We're going to hold community meetings [beginning in May] to get input from the citizens, and we'll also ask our staff what's needed, then compare the two."

"The master plan should have been done a long time ago," says board chairman Malmo. "We're looking at our community centers -- are they obsolete? Should we sell some of the land we own? Should we close some facilities? What about our outdoor swimming pools? They're only open eight weeks a year -- that's a horrible buy for your recreation dollar. We still have one of the best [park] systems in the country, but we can do better."

Boyer thinks one way to improve the parks would be to run them more like a business. "We want a customer-service-oriented, efficient system," he says. "Everything we do should be customer-driven. We've done surveys and found a high degree of satisfaction with the zoo and museums, less satisfaction with the golf courses and pools."

Boyer also intends to reorganize his department, the structure of which, he says, is "not appropriate to provide adequate service." Currently it's divided into 11 areas, such as planning, maintenance, and athletics, each with its own director or manager. In addition, four major Memphis tourist attractions -- the zoo, botanic garden, museum system, and Mud Island -- report directly to Boyer.

In January 1995, the Memphis Zoological Society took over operation of the zoo, on the theory that private enterprise could do a better job than government. The zoo still receives an annual "management fee" from the city, but that subsidy accounts for less than 15 percent of the zoo's total revenues. Admissions, membership dues, retail sales, and special events provide much of the remaining income.

Encouraged by the zoo's success, the botanic garden and museums are also leaning toward a free-market approach. "We may be moving in the direction of privatization and independent operation," Boyer says of the aforementioned attractions. "Only Mud Island has no supporting membership group."

Mud Island. The awkwardly named park has been a thorn in Memphis' side since it opened in 1982. Local residents rarely go there except to entertain visiting relatives or to see a show at the amphitheatre. The island is regarded as a white elephant that will never pay its own way, but it sits at the heart of downtown's riverfront, refusing to be ignored. To shut it down would be even more of an embarrassment.

"If you asked 10 people in this city, `What do you want Mud Island to be?' says Boyer, "you'd get 10 different answers. Theme park? Amusement park? Public park? Entertainment center? Museum?" But in the island's defense, he adds, "There was never the expectation that it was going to be self-sustaining. It can't be, in its current state. Our obligation is to do interesting things at Mud Island to encourage people to come back."

His most immediate concern, though, is to find a new general manager for Mud Island. The position has been vacant since January 1, 1996. Boyer had hoped to hire a replacement before the island reopened for the 1997 season on April 5th, but now it appears the job won't be filled before mid-May. (The commission is also still interviewing candidates for the position of deputy director, who ranks just below Boyer on the chain of command.)

Mud Island isn't the only potential deadweight in the park system. When construction of a new baseball stadium downtown is completed in 1999, Memphis' new AAA ball team will vacate Tim McCarver Stadium at the fairgrounds. What happens to that ball park then?

"That will be dealt with in the master plan," says Boyer. "The stadium could still be used for baseball, on an amateur level, or it could be a combined athletic/entertainment facility. Or there may not be a need for either of those, and the stadium might be demolished. Once professional baseball leaves, there's no revenue stream to maintain it."

Another property with an identity crisis is the recently expanded Tom Lee Park. Should it cater to Memphians who want to fly kites, skate, and enjoy the river view, or should it be set aside as a venue for festivals?

"With Tom Lee, as with everything," says Boyer, "the question is, `What do we want it to be?' If you try to make it too many things to too many people, it's not going to work."

Boyer is also aware of the need to balance resources between the flashy tourist attractions and smaller neighborhood parks, which are just as important to his overall mission. "Our priorities are based on what citizens tell us," he explains. "I can't say we have `something for everybody,' because we can't do that. But if there's a budget shortfall, we'll look for new funding sources [for example, by encouraging corporations to sponsor a particular park or program]."

What are the chances of squeezing more money out of the city's general fund? Not good, according to Malmo.

"Parks and recreation always gets the short end of the stick," he says. "That's true all over the country, and it's more true now than in the past. The principal problem the [Memphis] system has faced is that maintenance funds have not kept up with expansion. When annexation occurs, one of the first things the area is promised is a park and maybe a community center. Everybody loves to build things. But when you build a new community center, you're talking $200,000 a year to operate it. Where's that money going to come from? We're getting about the same amount of operating dollars as 15 years ago, but [purchasing power] is only 50 cents on the dollar compared to then."

In other words, it makes little sense to add new structures if you don't have the staff to maintain them. That's why the commission has increasingly relied on unpaid labor, taking advantage, for instance, of prison work-release programs to handle chores such as picking up litter. And then, of course, there are the volunteers.

"We have literally thousands of people volunteering in the system, doing everything from coaching athletic teams to teaching classes at community centers," says Boyer. "If we took all the man-hours we get from volunteers, priced at minimum wage, it would probably be at least $1 million."

A nonprofit support organization, Park Friends, Inc., was formed last year by a group of runners who jog every morning in Overton Park. Initially the goal was just to protect their favorite place, but the concept was later broadened to include all of Memphis' parks.

"I've met with them several times, and we've talked about projects they can do," says Boyer. "Other groups, such as the Evergreen Historic District Association, have expressed interest in helping."

Much of the volunteers' motivation arises from a great affection for Overton Park, widely touted as the crown jewel of the Memphis system. "People just love that park," Boyer observes. "They have an intimate relationship with it."

Because Overton Park is the flagship of the operation, its condition reflects on the system as a whole. If you've visited the 342-acre Midtown park lately, you probably noticed there's a renovation going on. Pavement in front of the Doughboy statue has been removed to make way for a "pedestrian plaza," and the formal gardens north of the Memphis College of Art are being revived. Park entrances will be upgraded, and temporary closures of certain streets will be made permanent, keeping the forest roads free of automobiles. This past winter, the commission closed off another road in the northeast corner of the park, thwarting rush-hour drivers who had used the route as a shortcut. "I've had nothing but compliments on that," says Boyer. "Not one complaint."

Overton Park's greatest asset is its old-growth forest, which could benefit from some tender loving care. "One neglected area I think we need to address is the urban forest," says Boyer. "We don't have an arborist on staff, nor do we have a forestry crew." The master plan will change that situation, he adds.

Contrary to a report in The Commercial Appeal, Boyer does not intend to hire full-time managers for Overton and two other large parks, Audubon and Tom Lee. But he does want commission employees to be more visible during peak usage hours.

"Our busiest times are Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays," he says. "We need to have somebody working in the parks when people are there. This [employee] would not be exactly a manager, but kind of a cross between a ranger and a maintenance person. He would not be a policeman -- he'd have no enforcement power. But he could assist people, give directions, and address minor maintenance problems or make note of them."

It's part of the customer-service approach that Boyer hopes to emphasize. And it's an acknowledgement that there's a lot more to the park system than softball fields and basketball courts.

"This is not an athletic department," Boyer says. "It's a recreation department. Our job is to provide ways for people to appropriately use their leisure time, and that could mean passive use. We don't program just for teenagers, but for the whole spectrum."

That means playgrounds for toddlers, after-school programs for children of working parents, jogging trails for baby-boomers, golf courses for those who can't afford a country-club membership, and activity centers for senior citizens.

Given the stresses of an urban environment, it would be a mistake to dismiss the park system as a luxury. Without city parks, many Memphians would have little opportunity to nurture their physical or emotional health. A quiet space, a patch of green, a chance to move freely and play -- all go a long way toward making Memphis the "City of Good Abode" it once claimed to be.