City Management Scapegoats Poor Park Maintenance

On Tuesday night (3/24/15) the City Councilmembers derided the poor conditions of park maintenance. The Public Works Director Vince Damasse and Public Works Superintendent Rick DeSantiago with stood the withering storm of criticism by hiding behind the Landscape Contractor. This scapegoating is a classic dodge by management of their own failure to properly monitor the state of the park system and to correct problems early, rather than wait for a systemic maintenance failure. The City’s extensive “Landscape Maintenance Services Agreement and Specifications” document provides a weekly process to assure timely inspections and corrections to prevent such total failures. This document is replete with assigning responsibility to the City’s Park Superintendent to oversee the landscape contractor. Unfortunately, City Manager Grant Yates eliminated the joint Parks & Recreation Department last year, along with the checks and balances that naturally flow from park users to the formerly combined Parks & Recreation staff. Furthermore, Public Works Director Vince Damasse removed the Park Superintendent last year and failed to replace this critically important position.

Millions of dollars have been invested to build our 200 acres of City parks. In addition, it costs approximately $2,000,000 per year to maintain this investment. This is a huge responsibility that requires constant supervision from an experienced management person. Our former mechanic, who rose through the ranks to become the Public Works Superintendent, was not trained in park maintenance and struggles just to maintain the miles of City streets (http://patch.com/california/lakeelsinore-wildomar/technical-report-indicates-city-is-throwing-money-down-a-pothole). For the past year, City Manager Yates and Public Works Director Damasse have relinquished the responsibility for day to day maintenance of the entire Park System to a humble Lead Worker position. The City needs to hire an experienced Park Manager or Superintendent now!

Our City functions under a Council-Manager form of municipal government that combines electoral leadership from Councilmembers providing general direction to professional management for operation and development of the City. The Lake Elsinore City Council really only oversees three employees, which are the City Manager, City Clerk and City Attorney. I recommend the Councilmembers follow the chain of command in dealing with poor Park Maintenance by holding the City Manager accountable. Although, I understand it is much easier to put the blame on a faceless contractor who’s not present to defend himself rather than to blame City Management who have the power to make changes.

Public Works Director Vince Damasse is working as hard as he can four (4) days a week, with all Fridays off, to maintain the parks. Don’t blame Mr. Damasse, blame the commute. He doesn’t live in the City of Lake Elsinore, nor the County of Riverside…try Valencia near Magic Mountain. Over this past year Mr. Damasse has been very good at hiring contractors to perform his work and giving the Council more process (watch City Staff’s double speak on Agenda Item #11 at (http://lake-elsinore.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=835); however, to get things done out in the field (parks), where it matters, he needs to lead his employees by example. It’s time for Public Works Director Damasse to stand-up and accept ownership for park maintenance.

The poor condition of the turf at Canyon Hills Community Park is a glaring example of how City Management had the power to improve the park maintenance. This is the City’s newest park and the homeowners pay an extra $200,000 a year into a Park Community Facilities District specifically for maintenance of this park. City Management failed to direct over-seeding of the turf this past fall with a winter grass variety to keep it green. The money was available from the Park CFD, but went unused. Harry Johnson from the Canyon Hills HOA Board must be up in arms over the poor turf condition.

A small example of Mr. Damasse’s attention to details is evident in his Department’s webpage (http://www.lake-elsinore.org/index.aspx?page=140). This Staff Directory names someone else as the Interim Director and two people who left the City months ago are still in his department’s directory. I can’t make this stuff up folks, but it does get worse. In most cities the Director of Engineering is a licensed registered Civil Engineer that can legally approve plan drawings submitted by Developers. The adjacent cities of Corona, Murrieta and Temecula have registered Civil Engineers managing the Engineering Department, but not the City of Lake Elsinore. The desperation hiring of Mr. Damasse is evident in the City’s job announcement, in which Mr. Damasse didn’t meet the City’s minimum qualifications to apply for Director of Public Works/City Engineer by not having a “valid certificate as a Civil Engineer issued by the California Board of Registration for Civil and Professional Engineers”.

See City Job Announcement flyer at weblink below:

https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.lake-elsinore.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx%3Fdocumentid%3D12100&sa=U&ei=kPEVVYGrINK0oQT_3oHoAQ&ved=0CAUQFjAB&client=internal-uds-cse&usg=AFQjCNE6tHld3PGWf8bJpGDFgoRmy4r5pA

City Manager Grant Yates thought he’d makeover this inadequacy by hiring a registered Civil Engineer to work under Public Works Director Damasse. This unbalanced arrangement establishes an inherent conflict by pitting a registered Civil Engineer against a Director who doesn’t have to risk his license when stamping plans for approval. That’s why City Engineer Walter Allison, the only registered Civil Engineer employed by the City, recently left the City. Good luck to developers with large and complicated projects getting plans or emergency amended plans approved by the City of Lake Elsinore in a timely manner, because our Director of Public Works/ Engineering Department Vince Damasse doesn’t have the legal authority to approve the engineering plans. I’m sure the City will hire another Civil Engineer, but the inherent conflict between the Public Works Director and registered Civil Engineer position will remain.

The diffusion of staff responsibility for the City’s Parks is also evident when you consider the Administrative Services Director preparing the Staff Report (Agenda Item #7) for design engineering services for Rosetta Canyon Community Park. Shouldn’t Director Damasse who is responsible for the Parks and Engineering Department do this work?

The poor park system maintenance is especially troubling given there are millions of dollars in capital funding available in the City’s coffers to make our parks the best in the County.

Pat Kilroy (22 year resident)