The Parks Department is proposing to replace 48 full-time equivalent parks maintenance worker positions with seasonal labor. The Parks Department argues in its budget proposal that the seasonals will provide 115,000 hours of work, while the maintenance staff would provide 89,000 hours of work.

Besides the ethical issue of stripping fringe benefits from people and the practical issue of a critical staffing shortage for much of the year if full-time staff is replaced with seasonals, there is the all-important issue of competence.

Seasonal staff knows much less than seasoned, full-time staff members do. Our little Story Hill neighborhood park gets maintained (or not) by a goodly number of seasonals. It’s not pretty watching these folks cut down the flowers they mistake for weeds. And whether it is through sheer incompetence, or just a matter of being very rushed because there isn’t enough staff to do everything that needs to be done, it’s becoming painfully clear that some parks workers are doing damage to the young trees that have had such a hard time staying alive in that park. (Click on the pictures for larger images.)

Who is the mad tree mangler?  It’s the parks worker, in the park, with the huge, improperly operated lawn mower.

The Parks Department need more people who know what they are doing, not more people just rushing to get it done.