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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-02-28Dryden Recreation and Youth Commission February 2018 Meeting Minutes (DRAFT) 28 February 2018 at 7:00 PM Dryden Town Hall Members present: David Peck (chair), Claudia Haferkamp-Wise, Paula Klaben, Stephanie Mulinos, Chris Sidle Liaisons present: Kathy Servoss (Town Board), Alice Green (Town Board), Kris Bennett (TCYSD), Marty Conger (Dryden Recreation), Shelley Lester (Rural Youth Services), Victoria Kulwicki (Dryden O.U.R.S.) Town Board update: A. Green • A. Green shared about the Town Board's discussion of qualities desired in anew Recreation Supervisor. o Strong desire that they have a background in management and planning o Sense that there needs to be a full time person in addition to the current part-time assistant position • K. Servos shared that the posted salary range is $40-45,000 Recreation Department: M. Conger • Spring booklet is out and has been distributed to • Cover is artwork from Dryden K-12 students • Summer camp o Director has been hired (was an assistant last year) o Dryden village is giving us their supplies • Youth travel basketball shooting stars will be wrapped up • Lacrosse starting is a couple weeks • Karate is going strong • Winter pickleball attendance has been low. (two dedicated players) o Publicize it through email, Facebook, and the Shopper. There is an pickleball email list that publicizes as well. • Father Daughter dance was successful and had about roughly 85 attendees. • Has letters out to Tompkins Cortland Community College, Cortland State, and Ithaca College looking for an intern Rural Youth Services: S. Lester • Shared the pamphlet for the 4-H Duck Race (April 29). • Shared a copy of draft annual report. Will send out electronic report for next meeting. Dryden O.U.R.S. / Project Lead: V. Kulwicki • Y.O.U.R.S (Cornell mentor part of program) secured two grants for the semester to fund Monday Makers (arts program) and Tech Tuesdays (STEM programming). These programs help get the students out into the greater area. • Recent programs have included o Mask making with Artistic Director of Syracuse's Open Hand Theatre o Visit to Cornell University Spacecraft Planetary Imaging Center o Doing an engineering challenge with student engineering group from Cornell Planning for Project Lead for the summer o Met with one of the guidance counsellors at Dryden o Shared some of the programming that is in the works o Will have a work study helper o P. Klaben asked about including students who attend Ithaca schools and provided a contact suggestion at Dewitt Middle School o K. Bennet suggested using the Ithaca PTA email newsletter to target ICS students who live in the Town of Dryden Tompkins County Youth Services: K. Bennett • Noted her report on her monitoring visit to Dave Hall's youth program • Will be visiting Victoria's program on March 1. • Shared that she will be retiring in May. There is discussion about roles within the organization, but there will be someone assigned as liaison to DRYC. Rail to Trail Commission: C. Sidle • Was out of town for the last meeting but did read the emails that followed the meeting • A. Green was at the meeting and shared some context o They discussed an issue regarding communication with a trail neighbor regarding vegetative barrier. Plan is now in place. o Discussion of next steps for the Rail Trail grant o Bruno Shickel has resigned from the commission so that he can chair a fundraising group to support the trail o Town has received a $182,000 NYS Parks grant o There will be an item on the March 15 Town Board agenda to draw from the Recreation Reserve Fund for the initial match o Rail to Trail fundraising group has pledged to completely replace those funds o S. Mulinos asked if there was a work plan for what the funds will be spent on and asked if the plan is in line with the resolution which created the Recreation Reserve Fund. o A. Green stated that there is a work plan in place. o K. Servos stated that because we have easements on those lands for the trail, it does satisfy the purpose of the reserve funds. Discussion Items D. Peck shared that Deanna Madigan has resigned from the DRYC. 2018 Working Calendar D. Peck will share the draft calendar electronically. He has discussed scheduling of in person program reports from Dave Hall and Victoria Kulwicki with Shelley Lester. S Mulinos shared from previous experience why their visit frequency had been reduced. K. Bennett stated that we can set a time limit for reports and give them guidance on what we'd like them to share during their time. Victoria actually prepared a special presentation for us that wasn't in her regular printed program report. She suggested maybe Dave and Victoria could bring students once a year to share what they got out of a program. K. Bennett stated she'd received a call from a Dryden parent who was looking for a listing of youth employment opportunities. There may be a few summer assistant jobs built into the RYS budget, but Dryden no longer offers a subsidized youth employment program. The decision was made to offer other programs to benefit more youth. M. Conger stated that Diane Pamel (Southworth Library) was working on a grant to set up youth employment workshops. Workshops would cover building confidence, creating resumes, interview skills, etc. 2018 Goals D. Peck shared that we will be working on DRYC goals at the March meeting and asked members to consider what goals we should set for the year. Recreation Supervisor Search D. Peck shared that the search team will be made up of Alice Green, Claudia Haferkamp-Wise, Marty Conger, Jennifer Case (Town of Dryden personnel), and himself. The search committee had reviewed twenty application from both the Recreation Coordinator and Recreation Supervisor postings. The list has been reduced to four candidates who to be invited to interview. There are a couple additional applicants who will be contacted if necessary. A. Green shared on the job description and how the focus of what we are hiring for has changed over the last few years. After not receiving enough qualified applicants for a Recreation Coordinator, the decision was made to repost for a Recreation Supervisor. S. Mulinos shared some background on the reason for seeking a Coordinator instead of a Director and the civil service requirements that impacted the decision. The case was made that we could use a different title but have the same expectations. A. Green shared the proposed interview timeline. Our hope is to have a candidate selected in time for the Town Board meeting on March 15. S. Mulinos shared insight on using questions to explore the candidate's competency areas. K. Bennett suggested creating scenarios to determine how candidates would handle situations. S. Mulinos suggested the same can be accomplished by asking the candidate for real life situations they'd dealt with. Also suggested using situations previous Recreation employees found difficult to determine the candidate's competency on those areas. (i.e. dealing with bureaucracy or complex regulatory environments where there isn't a lot of direct supervision.) She noted that the position tends to have a lot of accountability but not a lot of direction. A. Green noted that she hopes to improve the level of direction and communication with the Recreation department. C. Sidle talked about the concept of engineering success in a multi -pronged environment. Noted that the Recreation Department is more than just the athletics. We want the candidate to think about and express how they would engineer the success of all of the programs. S. Mulinos suggested asking for an experiential scenario where the candidate planned and managed a long term project or multi-year project. K. Bennett noted that we need someone who can manage short term programs and projects as well as manage broader multi -layer, multi -constituent project. A. Green suggested asking a question that deals with how they would handle the differences that the geography, demographics, and economic makeup of a town as large as Dryden presents. The town has students attending five school districts in addition to the Dryden School District. C. Sidle asked if we know if any of the candidates have local knowledge. A. Green noted that the previous posting description had indicated preference would be given to someone with local knowledge. D. Peck noted that there is a mix of applicants we know would have local knowledge and some we don't know about. With the limitations of the civil service application, it's difficult to determine how much local knowledge a candidate might have. Several members noted that an applicant may be willing to move or might be seeking the job in a desiring to return to the area. S. Mulinos stated that she's been involved in on interviews where the candidate was given written questions to answer after an interview. The questions were specifically tailored to the field and included a scenario. Gives a sense of their writing skills. C. Sidle asked M. Conger what she thinks are the most important things for the position and what parts of the job she likes the best. M. Conger says she enjoys all the aspects of her job. There a many parts to the job, and you never know what's going to happen. She mentioned some of the aspects of the job she doesn't enjoy. Those aspects were not part of what she was hired to do but has taken on because there was no one else to do them. It makes it hard to do more or focus on doing specific things well because it all has to get done. We need someone who can work as a part of a team because it does have to be a partnership. There is much more that the that could be done, but she doesn't have the time within the number of hours she's hired to work. S. Mulinos stated that from what had been discussed already, the ability to be adaptable and flexible is really important. She said that she has a resource she uses for screening for specific competencies that she would share with the team. Because direction comes from elected officials, adaptability is important for times that a leadership change impacts attitudes or approaches towards the Recreation Department. The person needs to be able to go with the flow and still keep the day to day responsibilities in mind. P. Klaben spoke from her experience as a federal employee with adapting to changes in administrations. The individual needs to keep in mind that they work for the people of the Town of Dryden and not for the Town Board. The Town Board oversees them, but they work for the people of the Town of Dryden. A. Green noted that from her experience working with Marty over the last few weeks, she looking at the person's time management ability and ability to use the network. There are so many constituencies and things going on and knowing how to use the network to get things done is vital. Knowing the different constituencies and how to work with them is important. K. Bennett suggested the question of how they would go about learning about Dryden could address that area. The best person might not be the one who knows Dryden but will be down the line because they know how to learn about the constituencies, resources, and network to get things done. S. Mulinos talked about the benefit of determining cultural fit both within the organization and the community. The demographics of the town are diverse. K. Bennett suggested asking a more open ended question that asks the candidate to identify the some of diverse groups we want to connect with. You want someone who is thinking beyond just race when you talk about diversity. You don't want to ask a question you already know the right answer for. A. Green stated our goal is to keep interviews to about an hour. C. Sidle stated a good interview is a conversation. K. Bennett asked if we had time at the end for the candidate to ask questions of the interview team. You can tell a lot by the questions they ask and how much research they've done about the position. S. Mulinos stated that some of the questions could be combined to get to the same information. We like to ask people why they're leaving their current job. Why are they looking? What was their favorite job and why? What was their least favorite job and why? You get a sense of what they like to do and what they don't like to do. S. Mulinos expressed that she was glad Alice is taking ownership of the Recreation Department in her role as a Town Board member. It is really important to the success of the people who work in it. There is often a disconnect between the legislator and elected officials and the hired people who do the day to day work. A. Green stated it's an exciting time to be here and to help with recrafting the department. She expressed her appreciation for everyone's input. The meeting adjourned at 8:45 PM.