Park Board Commissioner Candidate Mimi Poling Wants You to Know

Ms. Poling is currently serving on the Plainfield Township Park District board of commissioners as an appointee and is running for one of two 2-year term seats open there. Below is text she prepared but did not need for that forum. I’m posting it here at her request and with her permission for some very minor edits I made (primarily formatting), to assist her in getting her message out:

The Candidate Forum held by the Chamber of Commerce last week encouraged candidates to write about their philosophy, interests and issues. I’d like to share some of my thoughts here:

My Philosophy of Public Service:

• Giving back to my community with integrity;
• Making ethical decisions with our resources to meet people’s needs and create an environment we are proud to live in;
• Donating my time, knowledge, experience and skills to improve our community;
• Leading Plainfield Township Park District to accomplish even more than it deems possible.

Some of the Issues facing our Park District:
We have for years been receiving a lower level of funding than other near-by districts. Improving our finances is important so that we can continue to improve and maintain our parks, structures, and programs. Some ways we might do that are with careful spending; being more assertive in applying for matching grants; continuing to grow our partnerships with other governmental and recreational agencies and possibly even with sub-divisions and corporations; two-way communication that leads to increasing enrollment; building revenue generating programs; educating our constituency to our need; and deciding together as a community what we want from our parks, availability of space and maintenance or to build, grow and beautify.

One way we are doing already doing this is through work on our vision for the future. This will lead to a 5-year Master Plan set to be implemented in January, 2016. So far our consultants have met with other district leaders, staff, and commissioners. We’ve had one open Town Hall meeting for residents thus far and there will be others. We also have an active web site where everyone can give their input (reach it by following this link: http://plainfieldparkplan.mindmixer.com/). From this we hope to pull together a plan which we can use to both make and measure progress.

There are big questions that loom over us like funding, an aging outdoor pool, and a changing demographic to name a few.

Our population is aging. Not only are our “baby boomers” maturing but because families have been staying in the same home these past several years we have fewer preschoolers which had been one of our steadiest and popular program segments in the past.

We have more teens - a more difficult segment to bring into programs because of school commitments and their constantly and rapidly changing interests and technological forms of communication. Thankfully our great staff watches and responds well to trends but the technology and communication issues mean we have to be vigilant and maintain a competitive ability to get the word out in ever changing ways.

And the senior demographic while growing is also changing. No longer are seniors just retired citizens available during the middle of the day. We (I am a retired 63-year-old) are more active and working longer. My own husband is planning on working until he is 72. With the wonderful new Plainfield Township Community Center open downtown we have an opportunity to reach out with evening and weekend programs that could embrace this growing dynamic. And as we age, we are more educated today about our health and the need to work at exercising both mind and body while maintaining healthy nutrition throughout our lives. Our park district is one place for us to do this.

But to solve our issues like the planning and communicating, growing and changing takes the people of Plainfield Township Park District to work as a team - the commissioners, staff, community leaders, and the citizens - to continue to make this a great park district. As a commissioner I can help lead, but it’s our community who must decide the direction.