USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Somerville > Report of the city of Somerville 1944 > Part 20
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325
RECREATION COMMISSION
Proper subject for reporting here by the Commission is its recent venture, of major importance and significance, into a field of operation and promotion which the Somerville Recre- ation Commission had not previously entered, although such undertaking had been frequently discussed and previously rec- ommended to the Commission by the Superintendent. This entire subject has to do with the functioning of a municipal Recreation agency OUTSIDE AND BEYOND the business of directly conducting and promoting MUNICIPALLY-DIRECT- ED recreational activities and programs through paid leaders in its own employ. The new venture, explained and discussed in the immediately following paragraphs, is rooted in the as- sumption that a municipal Recreation agency has a legitimate function and an obligation to contribute to the Community's recreational life by assisting, encouraging, and helping to co- ordinate those recreational activities in the Community which do NOT originate municipally but are conducted by PRIVATE and SEMI-PUBLIC agencies or are the spontaneous expres- sions of INDIVIDUALS and small groups. It is rooted in the principles that recreation is PERSONAL; that FREEDOM of action and expression are of its very essence ; and that any governmental agency, under our American system, should func- tion in such manner as to encourage individualism and per- sonal enterprise as against paternalism-should assist or en- able citizens individually and collectively to DO THINGS FOR THEMSELVES rather than depend solely or primarily on Government. This recent venture has to do with the relation of the Recreation Commission to the private and semi-public agencies in Somerville which in one degree or another promote or conduct Recreation programs or activities or have available facilities or leadership for doing so.
The following facts may be accepted and agreed upon with- out demonstration, the Commission believes :-
(1) Municipal facilities for Recreation, especially primary ยท facilities such as buildings, halls, gymnasia, indoor athletic courts, swimming pools etc. are extremely few and inadequate in Somerville.
(2) Such facilities are necessary to any community's Recreational life.
(3) Many private agencies do have varied facilities, es- pecially indoor facilities.
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ANNUAL REPORTS
(4) In ratio to Somerville's population the number of trained leaders, for recreational activities, employed by the Municipality must be small and must fail to in- clude from time to time the particular kinds of leader- ship needed for all the desirable kinds of activities.
(5) Non-public agencies in any community have available as leaders, actual and potential, capable and skilled persons whose service would be valuable to publicly- operated Recreation programs and to those of other non-public agencies which, in turn, have OTHER lead- ers competant in OTHER kinds of activities: while any of these non-public agencies may LACK certain types of leadership for certain activities for which the PUBLIC, MUNICIPAL organization DOES have em- ployed leaders available.
(6) Some source or sources for TRAINING and develop- ing leaders for Recreation as conducted by both public and non-public agencies is highly desirable and valu- able; and this training can be promoted through the public Recreation service : and other agencies may assist valuably.
(7) The use of certain PUBLICLY-OWNED facilities, including halls, sections of buildings, play fields, etc. is frequently desirable to semi-public or private agen- cies in the interest of their own recreational activities.
To promote a "pooling" of such resources in facilities and leadership, by offering itself as a "clearing-house" without in any way dominating or controlling policies, methods or pro- grams of non-municipal agencies; and to assist in the training or provision for training of leaders; is the essential aim of the new venture launched by this Commission. It aims at REC- IPROCITY, for the enrichment of all programs and the con- sequent enrichment of the recreational life of the Community, which spells enrichment of its civic, cultural and social life, its social and moral well-being, and the physical, mental and nervous health of citizens. In reciprocity for any group's extend- ing the use of its facilities (within limits fixed by itself, of course) to other groups or to the Community, any proprietary group or organization should, of course, receive municipal ser- vices through leadership, use of facilities and otherwise, and ser- vices through other co-operating groups. And training courses, institutes, etc., open to leaders of public and non-public groups -in which the Recreation Commission could render valuable service-could benefit all.
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RECREATION COMMISSION
That such reciprocity and mutual sharing is PRACTICAL, to the benefit of the whole community and each participating group as such, has been urged on the Commission by the Super- intendent. It has succeeded in other communities.
For stating any immediate probabilities as to the develop- ments in this venture, this present report is too early. The project has only recently been launched. The facts to date are as follows :-
Since jurisdiction over the City's own facilities (buildings and grounds) is not vested in this Commission, the Commis- sion alone and of itself is not in position to commit the City of Somerville to participation in a community co-operative pro- cedure of the pattern outlined above :- either the authority of other Municipal Departments must be DELEGATED to the Commission or other CO-ORDINATING agency of the City, or else the procedure must be complicated because of the non- co-ordination of the municipal authority involved. Accordingly, His Honor The Mayor has undertaken to define, as a policy of the City, the City's wish to carry out such pattern in co-opera- tion with local agencies. At the end of October His Honor made a public statement to this effect and has enlisted the co-oper- ation, towards application of the plan, of the Conference of Somerville Social Workers and the Somerville Community Council. Through these agencies the plan will be placed before a number of organizations and agencies which promote recre- ational activities, have facilities, etc. Steps to that end have been taken.
At the same time the Commision has authorized the Super- intendent, in pursuance of this policy of reciprocity, to have the service under the Commission assist other local agencies and to receive their co-operation. In keeping with this latter step there have already been established co-operative exchanges of facilities, leaders, and ideas between the Public Recreation' Service and two other agencies-in addition to the long-stand- ing co-operation between the Commission's service and the local Y.M.C.A. Other instances seem likely to develop without much delay.
This report now turns to another extremely important topic :
The Commission believes that one of its most important ob- ligations in connection with this Report is to call to the atten-
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ANNUAL REPORTS
tion of the City Government the greatly increased needs for community Recreation resulting from today's conditions ; and also the even greater need and the new demands that must fol- low in the so-called post-war period : because these conditions and these needs can be met only if the City Government, in- cluding the appropriating authorities are fully aware of the needs and their importance. In every community, in every news- paper and magazine, and in daily radio comment, the increased need for Community Recreation facilities and programs has been a theme for more than three years. Nearly every American municipality has seen the need. Public facilities and public funds are being marshaled everywhere. Disruption of family life, widespread employment of mothers, the stress and tension of war-time occupations, the abrupt rise in juvenile delin- quency-all these conditions of the day are so well recognized that mention of them is trite.
The crisis that faces the entire Nation, in respect to social and economic adjustment, has its implications for Community Recreation, including Somerville's Recreation. The needs that must arise in connection with THE ENFORCED LEISURE OF THOUSANDS OF DISPLACED WAR WORKERS when the great production drive slows down; the complicated prob- lem of LEISURE FOR RETURING SERVICE MEN-whether physically incapacitated or sound. whether with nervous or psychiatric difficulties or more nearly normal ; the need to. com- bat the effects upon the future civilian habits of young men now being schooled in violence through war experience and sub- jected to the excitement and nervous strain of military combat ; the need to oppose the violence, crime, restlessness, and broken morale that must follow the war-in even far greater degree than after the last world war: these needs constitute a recog- mized obligation upon society. That this obligation is shared by any municipal Recreation Service is obvious. To postpone any longer the planning and the assiduous effort necessary for coping with these needs is to neglect that obligation. It is already late.
During the past three years the Superintendent has given to these needs thought and study ; has systematically exchanged views with other Recreation executives throughout the Nation, with agencies of allied governmental and social services, with Federal authorities, and with agencies for municipal planning. And locally the Superintendent has been active in conferring and consulting with local leaders of non-public recreational, re-
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RECREATION COMMISSION
ligious, civic, and educational agencies and the Somerville Com- munity Council, in effort to insure that Somerville's whole com- munity effort along these lines, is to be well co-ordinated and representative of community thinking and community convic- tions and indicative of community needs. In the Recreation Commission's preparation of recommendations to the City Gov- ernment, WHICH FOLLOW HERE, this phase of the Com- mission's obligation, as judged, has been a major consideration.
Following the list of these recommendations by the Com- mission to Your Honor and Board, there are appended hereto the Commission's 1944 Financial Statement, and the Annual Report received by the Commission from the Superintendent.
The Commission respectfully recommends :-
(1) That the City undertake the construction and devel- opment of ten or more "neighborhood playgrounds" calculated to serve the non-athletic play needs of younger children; not necessarily any larger than 15,000 to 18,000 square feet in area, but the larger the better; without emphasis on expensive or perishable equipment, but with attractive and practical surfaces, shelter, shade trees, fencing, and drinking-water; with plan for providing trained leadership or supervision in times to come : the locations to be selected not without consideration and recommendation by the Recreation Commission : and by taking whatever advantage is pos- sible of
(a) Properties now in or about to come into cus- tedy of the City, through tax claims or otherwise ;
(b) Necds for demolition of unsightly or unsafe buildings ;
(c) Properties contiguous to public school and other school grounds ;
(d) The land at the junction of Albion St., and Lowell St .;
(e) The land on Central St., opposite Vernon St., adjacent to the Railroad ;
(f) The property formerly occupied by houses now razed, contiguous to the North side of the Northeastern Junior High School grounds ;
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ANNUAL REPORTS
(g) The City-owned land on the northwesterly side of Beacon Street ;
(h) Any properties that can be had by lease, loan, or purchase in the general vicinity of Pow . der House Square and Ball Square.
(2) That the City reconvert grounds and layout of the John M. Woods Playground (so-called) into an actu ally "play-able" playground, in keeping with the pur- pose for which funds were twice appropriated by the City :- (a) for purchase of the land, and (b) for its development; this reconversion to eliminate the placement of settees, etc., in locations deliberately cal- culated to prevent athletic games, etc., the removal of the high screen fence (valuable if utilized elsewhere) which surrounds a rectangle allegedly intended for tennis courts never maintained or conditioned or used, and which serves to prevent play of athletic games : and that the attempt be discontinued to have this "play- ground" regarded as a Park. ( The people's money was appropriated by the people's fiscal agents for purchase and development of a playground for the people and the people's children; and the vicinity has very great need of a playground.)
(3) That the grounds of the Walter Ernest Shaw "play- ground" be surfaced (as they never have been) to con- dition this area for playground purposes; that the screen fence be removed which now encloses the "child- ren's playground" area, in order to make adequate the space needed for baseball, etc .; and whatever of the "children's playground" equipment is of use be trans- ferred to the nearby grounds of the Hodgkins School, which are utilized to a great extent for children's play.
(4) That the work of developing the new Conway Play- ground be hastened to completion; and that it be placed in condition for use (even though not entirely completed as early as possible in the Spring-Summer months of 1945.
(5) The planting of trees for shade on the Glen St., Lin- coln Park, Conway, Shaw, John M. Woods, and Rich- ard Trum playgrounds, and installing of shelter-
331
RECREATION COMMISSION
houses, or the equivalent, there and at the grounds of the Perry School.
(6) That the City make more extensive provisions for outdoor Recreation in Winter seasons for adults and children ; such as toboganning, skiing, sledding, and ice hockey ; including separation of hockey-playing areas from general skating areas ; and including finan- cial and other provisions for supervision, leadership, and enforcement of regulations; and including some systematic or scientific organization of the flooding, scraping, and freezing process, as to rinks. .
(7) Financial provisions-through annual Municipal Budget and Appropriations-to enable the Commission to re-establish the program represented by the Evening Neighborhood Recreation Centers for Adults, using the buildings of the Knapp. Morse, Bingham, and Western Jr. High Schools, and some building in East Somerville ; or some equivalent.
(8) Similar provision as to restoration of the Evening Gymnasium Activities for Adults, as these had been conducted from 1930 to 1934.
(9) Provision-similarly -- calculated to make available to the public, as served through this Commission, the Gymnasium at the Western Jr. High School.
(10) That the City provide for the Commission's service some one or two or more buildings or sections of build- ings set aside for indoor activities for boys, especially the Boy's Clubs already sponsored by the Commission.
(11) Similar steps affecting girls, whether through the same or other buildings.
(12) Steps to bring about a sharing by the Commision in the allocation of permits, etc., affecting use of play- grounds, athletic fields, and other recreational facili- ties without non-conformity to the provisions of the City Charter.
(13) Construction of at least one Municipal building, which will serve as Recreation Center, Civic Center; with immediate steps to be initiated now as to the selec- tion of location (s) and planning.
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ANNUAL, REPORTS
City of Somerville, Recreation Commission FINANCIAL SUMMARY, 1944
ANNUAL APPROPRIATION
$24,087.12
SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATION, May 25
13,620.88
TOTAL APPROPRIATIONS
$37,708.00
"RECEIPTS" (May 26) THROUGH REFUND A
1.85
TOTAL APPROPRIATIONS AND RECEIPTS
$37,709.85
TRANSFER TO PUBLIC BUILDINGS DEPARTMENT (December 21)
965.00
$36,744.85
EXPENDITURES :
Salaries and Wages
$29,913.71
Equipment and Supplies
1,881.61
Printing and Planographing
222.25
Office Supplies
326.81
Telephone
203.60.
Postage, Parcel Post, and Express
167.90
Disbursements
20.65
Rental of Premises
330.00
Rental of Equipment and Supplies
115.85
Repairs
28.63
Automobile Maintenance:
Station Wagon
486.95
Other
135.00
Carfares for Itinerant Workers
12.50
Music
44.10
Amplifying Service
30.00
Overhaul of Typewriters
25.00
Special Items:
Bicycles and Accessories
99.64
Public Address System
201.40
Portable Phonograph and Accessories
60.00
All Other
20.77
TOTAL EXPENDITURES
$34,326.37
34,326.37
UNEXPENDED BALANCE
$ 2,418.48
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RECREATION COMMISSION
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT TO THE RECREATION COMMISSION FOR THE YEAR 1944
December 30, 1944 To The Recreation Commission :
This or any Annual Report of the Superintendent to your Commission is, of course, concerned with the BUSINESS of the Commission rather than with any expression of personal feeling or experience ; the proper subject being the "condition of the Service"-the activities-program, accomplishments of the employed staff, facilities, properties, and finances. Yet, by unique circumstance in the present case, a fundamental feature of the developments to be reported for 1944 is intimately bound up with a personal experience of the Superintendent. Hence the emphatic position-in the very earliest paragraphs of this Re- port-given to a topic which does involve an expression of personal gratitude and appreciation, but also expresses a car- dinal fact whose consequences are, in the Superintendent's judgment, of major importance as contents of this Report.
1.
So cordial and so complete have been THE CO-OPERA- TION, SUPPORT, AND ENCOURAGEMENT which in 1944 YOUR COMMISSION HAS EXTENDED at all times and in all phases of its relationship to THE SUPERINTENDENT as its subordinate agent ; and so uniformly cordial, co-operative, and helpful have each of the MEMBERS of the Commission been in their contacts with the Superintendent; that it would be a grave omission not to emphasize, herein, both the FACT (as to the co-operation, support, encouragement, and courtesy) and also the EFFECTS of that fact upon the Service under the Commission.
Having reported and gratefully acknowledged the FACT, I respectfully report as to its EFFECTS on the work for which your Commission is responsible to the citizens.
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ANNUAL REPORTS
It is well recognized-among those informed as to Com- munity Recreation experiences, practices, and methods-that ANY such agency as your Commission achieves values and success in direct proportion to the quality of its leadership staff :- their ideals, skill, zeal, co-ordination, general efficiency, and esprit de corps. The SOMERVILLE Recreation Ser- vice has from its very earliest days been distinguished by the high professional standards of its leadership staff. But, of course , no such proficiency in the staff could have been devel- oped unless THE COMMISSION ITSELF, the source of au- thority and the chief influence in setting example of public service, had been able to inspire the workers in its employ. As one of those workers, the present Superintendent, more than any other and over a longer period, has had the privilege and responsibility to lead and direct other workers and to be the Commission's chief agent in promoting and preserving the spirit of the corps. And one year ago the Superintendent, in Annual Report to your Commission, stated two contrasted facts, the FIRST of which was cited with admiring respect, the SECOND with respectful regret. They were
(1) That over many years the Commission's own example, fine co-operation, and spirit of understanding had been a source of inspiration, encouragement, and assistance ;
(2) That, BY EXCEPTION, a relatively brief period, within recent years, had witnessed disparagement and discouragement of the efforts of the leaders and the program of activities, generated by proceedings and lack of proceedings within the Commission itself, with ill effect on the morale of leaders, consequent loss of efficiency of the staff, and through these a lowering of the values and accomplishments of the Service.
The 1943 Report might well have added that, in that excep- tional period, the Superintendent's efforts to lead the staff pro- fessionally and to advise the Commission adequately in selec- tion and promotion and regulation of employes had met with disparagement and discouragement that might easily have caused the Superintendent to be infected by the general ten- dency toward lower morale, and which certainly did very greatly lower the EFFICIENCY of "the executive and advis- ory agent of the Commission".
These facts are cited and recalled now because they enter into consideration of how the 1944 developments in the Service
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RECREATION COMMISSION
have so largely been the EFFECTS of the Co-operation and sup- port accorded by your Commission to the Superintendent; and furnish a key to the contents of the following paragraphs.
By extraordinary circumstance 1944 witnessed the ap- pointment to membership on the Commission of EIGHT NEW persons and the RE-APPOINTMENT OF TWO members whose service extended back many years to the period of co-opera- tion between Commission and Superintendent-when, as now again, ANY Superintendent could not have failed to be in- spired by the example set by the Commission as his superior. Even though this "new" Commission, in its new membership, was organized not until April (when appointments, reappoint- ments, and confirmation had been completed by the Mayor and Board of Aldermen) ; yet as early as May the Superintendent had already been impelled to state, in a passage of a customary monthly report, to the May 17 meeting of the Commission :- "By plainly showing that your Commission now intends to accept and discharge in full the duties, responsi- bilities, and authority proper to it, your Commission . . releases the Superintendent for the executive and profes- sional work proper to his sphere-the work which in very recent years has been necessarily left undone or inadequate- ly done when the Superintendent, in defense of the very existence of the Service, had to carry the load and do the work which are not the Superintendent's but the Commis- sion's .
"Your 'advisory and executive agent' (to use a phrase from the first sentence of the Commission's Rules and Regu- lations) has already become a more efficient executive and a more confident adviser than at any time during the past six years, because you have shown that you intend confidence in his motives. support of executive efforts, and attention to his advisory efforts and recommendations, whether these be followed or not followed after applying your judgment.
"I am taking .... . liberty . . . to express . . . . appre- ciation to the two members of your Commission whose ser- vices began fourteen and eighteen years ago . . . . whose courageous, wise, faithful, patient work and judgment dur- ing the past six years have been, in my humble and respect- ful and sincere judgment, a sturdy wall of defense of the Recreation Service and its ideals and principles ; who have consistently accorded the Superintendent's efforts far more confidence than I believe those efforts have deserved."
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ANNUAL REPORTS
Therein was an index to the pattern of what has since transpired and been transacted and accomplished toward the rehabilitation and improvement of the leadership staff and the revitalization of the program during the year. For the Super- intendent, RESPONSIBILITY-WITHOUT-AUTHORITY HAS BEEN ENDED because the Commission has not exemplified AUTHORITY-WITHOUT-RESPONSIBILITY. More produc- tive and efficient has been the Superintendent's performance of those professional duties and the discharge of those executive responsibilities which the Commission's Rules delegate to the Superintendent ; because an "on-its-job" Commission exercises its prerogatives as the legally authorized head of the Service, and faces, too, its responsibility as custodian of the interests of the Service: while the Superintendent has been actuated to recapture the enthusiasm to do and give one's best, adhere to professional ideals and civic ideals, ply one's every energy and every resource in constructive, creative work ; and to turn one's experience and aims into leading and guiding and training and organizing similarly actuated co-workers within the staff- because no longer burdened with the struggle to rescue the Ser- vice from sabotage or neglect by its authorized custodians.
Beneficial effects in still another direction should be re- corded here. The position of Superintendent is that of "advi- sory agent" as well as "executive agent" of the Commission. It carries the function to recommend persons for appointment to positions. And, as Secretary To The Commission, the Superin- tendent is required to render advice to committees, etc. While allowance is to be made for the fallibility of any human judg- ments and the errors that must be made by any Superintendent ; I respectfully submit that values and accomplishments have been enhanced through care in selection of leaders, because of the Commission's confidence in, compliance with, and ac- quiescence in the Superintendent's opinions and recommenda- tions as to appointments, promotions, salaries, regulations, and disciplinary items. And similarly the initiating or continuing of activities-programs, and the allocation of funds, have bene- fited by your Commission's practices in relation to its advisory agent.
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