City adopts parks master plan

RONAN — On Monday night, clear heads and common sense prevailed at Ronan City Hall when the city council approved the Ronan Parks and Recreation Department’s Master Plan, which was presented last month and put to a vote on March 12, earning different results.

Councilman Roger Romero made a motion to approve the document with the understanding that future projects and each source of funding for the city’s parks would be approved by the council before construction. It was a victory for parks director Jennifer Rolfsness who was blindsided by the previous meeting’s failed motion.

“We had been working on this for years,” Rolfsness said. “Everything was moving along. On Feb. 13, we met with the council, we presented a PowerPoint at the meeting on Feb. 27, and they put it on the next council meeting agenda to vote on it.”

Rolfsness and her team of parks board volunteers thought that the board’s approval was a sure thing, as they’d met again on March 5 with members of the city council and the public works department and made all requested changes. Instead, the board voted against the plan (2-4) because they felt components of it may be tied to Agenda 21, an action plan of the United Nations (UN) related to sustainable development.

Where does Agenda 21 come into the picture?

“I had never heard of it before,” Rolfsness said. “I had to look it up with the internet on my phone during the meeting.”

On March 6, members of the council had received a hefty packet from Ronan resident John Swenson, warning about the dangers of Agenda 21 and its connection to the department’s Pathways for Play project, which was mentioned in the master plan. According to its website, Pathways for Play was created in partnership between a company called PlayCore and the Natural Learning Institute, a program of North Carolina State’s College of Design. Swenson said this is a problem because professor Robin C. Moore is an open advocate of Agenda 21.

“He goes on talking about the plan,” Rolfsness said, quoting Swenson’s letter to the board. “It is one of sectarian indoctrination - tantamount to religious indoctrination - if it passes you will all be in violation of your oaths of office.

“No one on the parks board received a copy of this,” she added. “The city council — they’d already had this letter for six days, but none of them had told us about it. I’ve been working 20 years to help our community be healthier and this is just a vision of where we want to see ourselves now and 20 years down the line.”

On Monday night, the parks department was again on the agenda, and members of the community were out to say their peace as well, armed with copies of a March 14 Valley Journal article on the subject.

Romero’s first motion to accept the document added two conditions: that the city council must review each new project and that the city would not accept funding from any group or company known to support Agenda 21.

Ronan resident Dennis Winter opened public comment with the question, “Why would you want to discourage anyone from donating money to the city?” He later added that a master plan doesn’t have to name any particular company and that if the city was presented with an opportunity to receive “no strings attached” funding from someone, just because they may be a big corporation, why isn’t their money any good?

“I don’t know this for sure, but there was a hint of it in that article,” one woman began, “There might be some politics going on, and also fear. I encourage you to pass this document because if you don’t have a plan in place, you will rue the day [that you didn’t pass it].”

Billie Lee, executive director of the Lake County Community Development Corporation, shared another caution with the council.

“You are taking a political stand as a council on behalf of the city of Ronan,” she said. “Are you reflecting your constituency? And can you achieve this same goal by accepting the master plan and adding the sole caveat that any funding must first come through the council?”

Dr. Ed Vizcarra spoke for a few minutes, delivering a speech that felt a little bit like the slow motion follow through of a half-court buzzer-beating basket in a championship game.

“Let me make clear what my agenda is,” he began. “This is the first generation that is not going to live longer than their parents. It’s important to get kids moving.”

With the unified support of the hospital, schools, chamber of commerce, county and Tribes, Vizcarra called what the parks department has accomplished as “unprecedented for a town like Ronan.”

“You have the opportunity to be at the forefront of this and say that this can happen,” he said. “When you have a situation where lots of people are involved and buying into a project, there will be a lot of help on the way. I hope that someday I can bring my granddaughter down to this park. There will be a smile on my face. To have that opportunity in Ronan, that’s what your decision is all about.”

The City of Ronan Parks Department’s Parks and Recreation Master Plan 2012-2017 is available online at http://www.ronanparks.net. The public comment period for the master plan is now closed, but the site also offers a wealth of information for community members looking to participate in events or help with fundraising for the future of Ronan’s parks.

“We’re relieved that we can finally move forward,” Rolfsness said of the vote. “We have a lot of really good support in the community and I hope we can rally the enthusiasm of our parks board again and bring it back to the level that we were at before this all started. We still have a lot of work to do.”