More SEIU jobs. How could this be a bad thing?
The suckers in Columbus agreed to a 25% income tax hike. Why stop there?
Need money? Stick them until they squeal!
$1M to run Scioto Mile?By Robert Vitale, The Columbus Dispatch
Saturday, October 02, 2010 02:56 AMThe much-heralded public-private partnership that has paid to remake the Downtown riverfront will become a purely public responsibility after the $40 million Scioto Mile opens.
The city needs nearly $1million and 18 new employees next year to run the new park, Columbus Recreation and Parks officials say. And the department's 2011 budget request to Mayor Michael B. Coleman calls that estimate conservative.
It's "the bare minimum ... and is meant to only be a starting point for when that portion of the park opens in 2011," Recreation and Parks Director Alan McKnight told the mayor in his request for additional funding.
"We need people in there, not just Monday through Friday," McKnight told The Dispatch in an interview yesterday. "We're looking at two shifts here, seven days a week."
Among the potential new employees he has recommended to Coleman and city budget-writers are a plumber, an electrician, two maintenance workers and three laborers, a marketing specialist, a graphic artist and a park manager.
Seven workers would be full-time city employees, and 11 would be part-time or seasonal. Salaries would range from $10 an hour to almost $67,000 a year.
Coleman and city finance officials will review the request before the mayor submits his own budget proposal to the City Council in mid-November.
Spokesman Dan Williamson said Coleman hasn't decided yet whether to include the extra money in his budget recommendation. But the mayor ranks recreation centers and neighborhood parks as higher priorities, Williamson said.
The park, which stretches along Civic Center Drive from Broad Street to the new Main Street bridge, is scheduled to open in the fall of 2011. Columbus, Franklin County and the state and federal governments contributed about half the development cost, while corporate donors led by American Electric Power chipped in the other half.
The Columbus Downtown Development Corp., which has managed the project, bills it as an "unprecedented, 50-50 partnership between the public and private sectors." Spokeswoman Amy Taylor said by e-mail that the city-created development group was asked only to design and build the park.
McKnight said running and maintaining the Scioto Mile has always been considered the city's responsibility. Columbus maintained the riverfront and Bicentennial Park, which is part of the Scioto Mile, before the upgrade, he said.
But in his request for more money and staff, McKnight told Coleman that the Scioto Mile will open with "extraordinary standards of attractiveness, cleanliness, maintenance and safety." He said the staff hired must be "specially trained and highly motivated."
Some of the $959,000 requested is for one-time expenses such as new tools and other equipment.
Scioto Mile's 15,000-square-foot fountain and artistic lighting also will mean higher water and electric bills for the city, according to the budget request.
McKnight said the city will need people to plan and promote events at the park's new amphitheater and along Civic Center Drive's new promenade. And park workers will need lifeguard training because the fountain will include areas for children to play.
rvitale@dispatch.com 
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Topic: Columbus Leadership
