Page 68 - Illinois Association of Park Districts Benefits of Membership 2017 - 2018

basketball programs in the schools. When a local school referendum failed, the Morton Grove Park District stepped up to save after-school activities for 400 children.4
Building better recreation facilities for the public
Park districts, forest preserves, conservation and recreation agencies are often the sole units of local government charged with the responsibility for building recreation facilities for the public. But, even in the pursuit of that mandate, these agencies take advantage of local opportunities to share both the risks and the rewards of creating state-of-the art facilities. For example, when the Decatur Park District and Millikin University both realized they were in the process of planning separate recreation centers, the two organizations worked through a two-year process to plan for a larger, more versatile facility. The result is the 87,000 square foot Decatur Indoor Sports Center (DISC), housed on the Millikin campus. The park district owns and operates the center for the university and the community. University students’ activity fees pay for their use of the facility, and the district and the university equally share the net income.5
Working for more effective local government
Communities across the state often ask park districts, forest preserves, conservation and recreation agencies to partner with other units of local government so that the community will ultimately win. To do so, agencies sometimes extend themselves beyond what is traditionally thought of as a “parks and recreation function.” For example, the Buffalo Grove Park District helps reduce telecommunication costs for the village and school district by housing replication centers for a shared wireless communications network.6 Recently, officials from the Tinley Park Park District, the Roselle Park District and the Bolingbrook Park District all got news from their village boards that district parks were the only viable sites for water detention basins. For the Tinley Park Park District, that could have meant losing its ball diamonds and a soccer field. But with careful, coordinated planning, the district turned its ball fields into Pottawattomie Park, a new park that accomplishes both the village and the district’s goals of controlling flood damage to a nearby residential area while maintaining recreational use of the area.7
Conclusion
4 Illinois Parks &Recreation magazine, September/October 2005, pp 57-58. 5 Illinois Parks &Recreation magazine, September/October, 2005 pp. 61-62. 6 Illinois Parks &Recreation magazine, September/October 2002 pp 11-13. 7 Illinois Parks &Recreation magazine, May/June 2005, pp. 30-33.
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