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Whereas, Arlington is only 26 square miles and space constrained, and

Whereas, Arlington’s statistically-valid survey  showed the highest recreational demand for open space and trails, and

Whereas, Arlington has a billion-dollar + budget and virtually zero dollars allocated for new park land acquisition in the most recently approved capital improvement plan, and

Whereas, the Arlington Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) has substantial evidence in its files of underutilized field space and recommendations from consultants to rework the management of field utilization, and

Whereas, the full and original methodology statement for best practices Population Based Level of Service (LOS) for estimating field and facility needs was not provided to the public nor to the County Board during the POPS process.  Instead, POPS is using a cherry picked version of the County’s own hired expert consultants’ stated LOS methodology, leaving out the supply/demand data and has erroneously labeled the incomplete POPS recommendations as valid “Population Based LOS (Level of Service),” and

Whereas, Arlington, for the foreseeable future, will not need anywhere near as many new fields nor investments as are proposed in the update to the Public Spaces Master Plan (PSMP or “POPS” plan) based on the actual utilization data in DPR’s own files, and

Whereas, the proposed PSMP will serve as a guiding document for all park planning for the next 20 years, and

Whereas, the PSMP will be used to guide all community park planning decisions and

Whereas, the PSMP will be used to guide all park investment decisions by the County and

Whereas, the PSMP will be used to guide other comprehensive plans such as Urban Forestry and Natural Resources Plans

Now, therefore, the Arlington County Civic Federation hereby resolves that the Arlington County government should

• remove the erroneous quantitative estimates for sports field demand from the final POPS plan
• commence a new, independent and transparent process to:

develop new quantitative estimates of county-wide supply/demand for sports fields

replace the county’s current field scheduling system with a real-time, web-based system

1. Arlington’s fields have NOT been well managed or maintained. And it is creating a false perception of field unavailability even as “reserved” fields sit empty.
   • This is confirmed by outside consultants’ reports, DPR’s staff “rover” reports on field usage, and DPR’s analyses on over-scheduling  See more
2. There is a considerable excess of diamond fields that demand cannot even reach existing fields’ capacity beyond 2035. 
   • DPR’s analyses showed there will still be excess diamond fields beyond 2035 without adding any new lights, investments in synthetic turf, or new fields at schools. All recreational field usage/needs should be reviewed.
3. DPR is NOT using a sound methodology for the recommendations within the 20 year Public Spaces Master Plan and has cherry-picked variables from the Population Based Level of Service to substantiate the Level of Service Recommendations.
   • These recommendations are tied to the Capital Improvements such as the $29M for synthetic turf, $75M for parks maintenance capital, of which the vast majority goes toward recreational infrastructure.
4. DPR did NOT disclose to the public the full expert consultant’s methodology statement which should have been part of the public POPS document.
   • This statements states supply/demand current and future projections are to be part of the best practices to apply Population Based LOS recommendations. Consultant’s Methodology Statement  and the Response to Katie Cristol‘s letter explaining the missing supply/demand data from the methodology.

On behalf of the County Board majority, I am writing in response to your request to pull the Diamond and Rectangular Fields Level of Service components out of the draft Public Spaces Master Plan (PSMP) update and to conduct a separate working group, post-PSMP adoption, that would study field utilization and make recommendations on levels of service and identify fields for possible removal.

First, thank you again for your patience. As I wrote last week, I hope to underscore that the delay reflected how seriously we considered your requests, and the number of conversations and analysis that each Board member wished to conduct about your proposals before arriving at our conclusions.

Now that we have been able to complete our own review, I’m writing to communicate that a four member majority of the County Board has decided not to pursue these proposals for an alternative process for the Public Spaces Master Plan Update. Board Member John Vihstadt feels differently, preferring to remove the Level of Service component from the remainder of the PSMP update process, and initiate an additional community engagement process, focused solely on the methodology of determining field utilization, to determine which methodology, or blend of the two methodologies, is most appropriate.

 

The other three Board members and I would like to share our thoughts about why we came to a different conclusion on the best way forward, and provide some next steps and context for how some of the broader concerns you’ve raised are being addressed or can be addressed in the future.

Level of Service Methodology

 

The population-based level of service (LOS) model used by the staff and confirmed by the Board earlier this year in a work session provides an industry-accepted and broadly-used planning tool.

We appreciated the chance to engage with an alternative methodology, a utilization-based approach, that you brought to our attention. This indeed is a valid way of looking at County resources. However, the Board majority saw two challenges with changing to a utilization-based approach. One challenge is that the number of assumptions that must be agreed upon by different stakeholders to generate a usable model; assumptions about not only the current but future popularity of different recreational activities, and about extrapolating future demand from current and past trends. The other challenge is that the population-based LOS model already has been socialized with the PSMP’s many affected stakeholders, and has provided the basis for community engagement over the past two years.

 

For these reasons, four Board members have agreed that the approach of the population-based Level of Service is the more appropriate one for our community, where different stakeholders have widely divergent assumptions about future utilization. We will not be pursuing the recommendation to create a working group to further assess a utilization-based methodology.

 

My colleagues and I want to emphasize, however, that the Level of Service estimates are 1) subject to ongoing review and 2) not determinative but rather one of many factors that will guide future public spaces decisions.

First, the first draft of the PSMP, posted in summer 2017, included a recommendation to review and update the Level of Service estimates periodically after the plan’s adoption. Board members remain committed to this premise and when reviewing the final draft, we will ensure that this recommendation clearly lays out our expectation as to how the five-year review of the Level of Service estimates will occur and factor in five-year look-back data at utilization.

Secondly, the LOS numbers in the PSMP are not “destiny,” but rather one measure of many that we – and future County Boards – will draw on regarding public space investments during site plan reviews, parks maintenance capital projects and master plans, operating budgets and Capital Improvement Plan updates. Other factors we will consider include other recommendations in the PSMP; guidance from adopted sector plans; guidance from other Comprehensive Plan elements, and outcomes from public engagement.

Improving Field Management Practices

During our briefings with you, you brought to Board members’ attention some excellent questions and points regarding management of the County’s field resources and whether they are being appropriately utilized. We brought raised these to staff and wanted to in turn share some of the recent steps taken to improve problems with effectively managing diamond fields in particular:

 

While the PSMP update has been occurring, DPR also has been taking steps to better manage the opportunity for use of fields by the broadest possible cross-section of the community. As you noted in your presentation, in 2015, staff retained the consulting firm GreenPlay to help create a Field Allocation Policy for affiliated youth and adult sports leagues. In this iterative process, DPR and the leagues have been piloting the approach over several seasons.  As you noted, the GreenPlay study showed that some fields that had been assigned to teams were not being used. The allocation policy currently being implemented is designed to end that practice and ensure that the leagues are using the full amount of field time they have been allocated, weather or emergency permitting.

 

Also, in Spring 2018, DPR completed an overhaul of the field classifications and converted 21 fields from “Permit Only” to “Permit Takes Priority.” This change means that when fields are unscheduled, members of the community who are not participating in organized leagues will have access for casual use.  With this change the County now has 77 Permit Takes Priority Fields and 13 Permit Only Fields.

Finally, consistent with the recommendations you shared with us, the final draft PSMP will recommend converting fields to synthetic turf and adding lights to increase usage of existing fields and require fewer new fields to be built.

Next Steps

The final draft of the PSMP is expected to be available for public comment by the end of September.  We encourage you to continue to participate in the POPS public processes, as you have to date.

Thank you for your thoughtful analysis and engagement with us, and again, for your patience with our response.

Best regards,

Katie

The following is in response to the County Board Majority’s Letter regarding the Population Based Level of Service (LOS) methodology.

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Dear County Board Members & Members of the POPS Committee:

This is in response to County Board Chair Katie Cristol’s October 10th email (attached) which explained the majority decision of the Board to support the continued use of the population-based Level of Service approach in the POPS update. It appears that in delving into the complexities of the population-based and the supply-demand analysis, we have not been clear about the problem with the approach used in the update thus far.

I agree that a population-based Level of Service approach can be an acceptable approach. However, DPR did not fully implement the population-based Level of Service approach as per Arlington’s own expert consultants. PROS Consulting’s methodology statement attached to this email titled “POPS LOS Methodology 171220” for Arlington’s POPS LOS Methodology says explicitly that;

“each community determine its own LOS standard based on current supply/demand and future supply/demand projections.”

This methodology statement given to Arlington about how to conduct LOS standards for our County requires supply & demand data, which DPR has, but has not been made part of the POPS process or any public process. Not only is this a critical part of the methodology, the data itself shows that there is a very large discrepancy between what POPS currently recommends as facility “needs” versus the actual need based on the usage of these facilities.

PROS Consulting and other experts include these capacity (supply/demand) adjustments in their population-based Level of Service methodology statements not just for Arlington but other localities and as a general rule of siting park facilities. Examples and links are provided below.

I want to be very clear in saying that this is not an issue of one methodology over another:

•  The POPS analyses have only partially implemented necessary data to complete the LOS methodology.
• The exclusion of DPR’s data on field utilization has resulted in POPS recommendations which are likely miscalculated.

Therefore, the portions with the POPS recommendations relying on the LOS methodology, must be revised to include the supply – demand analyses as prescribed and used elsewhere by the consultants and experts. A transparent and independent review and subsequent revisions would also reconcile the apparent discrepancy between DPR’s internal facility utilization data and the current public POPS recommendations.

We all want the POPS document and community planning processes to be as successful as they can be. The tremendous staff, community, and volunteer input and effort thus far for POPS should not be compromised by incomplete recommendations. Instead, the supply-demand analysis recommended by PROS Consulting to adjust and temper the findings should be completed to ensure that Arlington is making appropriate investments, land use decisions and community planning with the most accurate data available and with a complete and sound methodology.

CONSULTANT’S METHODOLOGY STATEMENT

POPS_LOS Methodology_171220

We have responded to various groups with the following,

“We’ve been made aware of a recent email campaign referencing parks4everyone.org that you sent to Arlington residents stating among other things,

“They have proposed to eliminate 11 sports fields in Arlington …”

THIS AND OTHER STATEMENTS ARE NOT TRUE. WE, AND NO ONE WE KNOW, HAS PROPOSED TO ELIMINATE 11 SPORTS FIELDS IN ARLINGTON.

Our Parks4everyone.org website contains a disclaimer about this email campaign across its webpages now to ensure that all site visitors learn more about that validity of the email campaign,

‘STOP!

If you’ve been directed here from a mass emailing saying,“[Parks4everyone] have proposed to eliminate 11 sports fields in Arlington…” Then you should know….

No one has asked that 11 fields be de-commissioned. You’ve been fed a false and misleading narrative.

If you can obtain a copy of the proposal apparently asking that the County Board eliminate 11 fields, we’d like to see it. Contact us if you have a copy. We don’t have one and have never seen it!

In fact, Parks4everyone is demanding transparency from Arlington County and to ensure that internal data has been made part of a public and independent process. 

Please make sure to take a closer look at the actual content of this website and the petition.”

We wanted to bring this to your attention and urge that your group, and whoever else may have been the originator, take the necessary steps to correct the misinformation you sent out earlier, which urged Arlington residents to protest a non-existent proposal, and even suggested that proposal is actually being considered by County Board members.

Asking residents to take action based on misinformation is not only inconsiderate of their time and energy, it’s likely not going to produce the results the campaign was intended to have when residents find out that it the email campaign was based on misinformation.

Furthermore, the County Board members who have had their inboxes flooded with this odd messaging about a non-existent proposal to eliminate 11 fields may not find it amusing that it was all based on a false and misleading campaign ultimately directed at them.

Parks4everyone is advocating for transparency, accuracy and civil discourse, which is why we felt that you receive a head’s up on this issue and hopefully will take the appropriate actions to correct the false information.

The petition and the website links are located below for your reference.

Parks4everyone.org

https://www.change.org/p/arlington-county-board-petition-the-arlington-county-board-future-of-arlington-s-parks

— Parks4everyone.org “

SPORTS MESSAGING DEBUNKED:

“Fields For Kids” message was recently posted to sports advocates. Here is the content with our FACTS response listed below.

“A group of open spaces advocates, Parks4Everyone, seeks to create new open spaces in Arlington by eliminating playing fields.”

FACT: Parks4everyone advocates for a review of the Dept. of Parks’s utilization data so that everyone can understand how these facilities are actually being used. Data like this would actually benefit sports users and validate any identified recreational needs.

“They believe that Arlington’s fields are under-utilized and mismanaged by the County, and that the County deliberately inflates the need for fields.”

FACT: We don’t “believe” it, DPR’s own internal data shows it in multiple and verified ways. Including these listed below:

• DPR staff reports showing that in-person field visits during reserved times demonstrated that no one or only a few people were actually on the field during a reserved time. “Rover Reports”   https://foia.arlingtonva.us/responses/entry/938/ 
• STAFF SPREADSHEET SHOWING OVER-SCHEDULING ACROSS MOST ALL TEAMS AND SPORTS DPR’s spreadsheets titled Spring Allocation Draft Spring v2 and Fall Pilot Summary “Tab” Summary. https://foia.arlingtonva.us/responses/entry/938/
• Consultants hired by DPR report allocation and scheduling issues.  Over-scheduled fields by as much as double what teams actually use and need. page 12 https://parks.arlingtonva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/17/2016/02/Athletic-Facilities-Allocation-Study-February-Work-Session.pdf

“In their quest to “optimize Arlington fields,” this group believes that, among other things, field users should be required to accept unpopular or inconvenient field assignment times.”

FACT: A typical Spring calendar week for Adult Softball Fields, shows almost half of all Saturday is reserved across all the diamond fields, while only a few fields during the week have reservations on them during the evening hours. If the idea being expressed is that playing during a Saturday evening or on a Friday evening is unacceptable/ or inconvenient, then the residents of Arlington should be made aware that it is because of “preference” of all teams wanting the same few times of days, few fields and few hours even during the height of the season that the sports advocates are claiming there are not enough fields and that Arlington should retain and expand its fields (costing tens of millions in maintenance and improvements costs and acres of land) in lieu of other park and recreational needs 

“The group states that by optimizing fields, Arlington can “decommission” sports fields and turn them into parks. ”

FACT: Optimization of ALL facilities should be occurring. Arlington doesn’t build a new school until the schools are shown to be at capacity. Why do sports advocates feel that their facilities are excluded from optimization? These are huge and costly facilities in located in our public spaces and maintained by your public tax-paying dollars. 

“This group’s efforts are timed to coincide with the County Board’s forthcoming vote on an updated Public Spaces Master Plan.”

FACT: This is correct. The Public Spaces Master Plan called “POPS” contains recommendations affecting millions of dollars and acres of parkland could be available for trails, open space,  gardens,  trees,  community event spaces,  dog parks, and other park and recreational needs. But unless we have a transparent review of how park facilities are currently utilized, most of those needs will not be met.  However, supply & demand data has not been made public in the POPS process or any public process conducted by DPR.

“Does Arlington need more parks? Maybe.Can it get by with fewer sports fields? Emphatically NO! ”

FACT: Parks4everyone is demanding that the County hold a public process to know just how many recreational facilities are in fact needed. The Dept. of Parks asserts that it did NOT use their supply/demand data, but it has used the sound methodology of Level of Service Standards, however experts who worked on the recommendations for the county said, that  “Each community determine its own LOS standard based on current supply/demand and future supply/demand projections”  POPS_LOS Methodology_171220  DPR did not.

“Arlington’s adult and youth populations are growing and will continue to grow. It becomes harder for sports groups to find time to practice and play games. Leagues are squeezing more and more players into a fixed number of spaces.”

FACT: All of Arlington’s population is growing. However, according to the recommendations only recreational facilities will be prioritized in money and land allocation to meet their yet to be validated need.

“The County Board needs to hear the truth about fields, field condition, and field availability from league officials, parents, coaches, and players.”

FACT: Parks4everyone doesn’t just want people to say their “truth” we want to see it in the data as part of a public and transparent process. That’s the only way residents can know the truth about our public space usage and needs.

“Open spaces are nice, but lots of kids like playing sports.”

FACT: Kids like playing with their friends and families in many ways. But so do all other demographics who need to be able to use their public spaces and retain natural areas for our wildlife and sustainability.

“The Board needs to understand how reducing the number of fields will impact our kids! ”

FACT: We ARE asking that the Board and the public see the data in transparent process to understand all impacts, including fields and other needs.

DISCOVER what you can do to make a BIG difference. 

 

6 Arlington County Myths Busted:

The Truth about the Future of Arlington’s Parks and the Money that will be spent on them.

 

Parks4everyone.org, a county-wide grassroots initiative to make our parks for everyone. Supported by the Friends of Aurora Highlands Parks and individuals throughout Arlington County.

Summary:

A 20-year Public Spaces Master Plan (PSMP) or the“POPS” plan will be approved in the next few months. It will guide and be used as a benchmark for decisions about ALL County-owned public spaces, including community parks and even some APS recreational facilities — decisions for the next 20 years. Despite an enormous effort and citizen input, the flawed foundation on which the recommendations are based undermines the County’s ability to address the many competing public space needs and priorities.

Underlying all recommendations for how parks will be planned and utilized, and how millions of dollars will be spent on capital improvements are “Level of Service” (LOS) goals, which are buried deep in the POPS appendix. Essentially, LOS means we need X facilities for Y people. However, these LOS goals were created without examining the existing or projected “supply and demand”—the actual needs and utilization of the various facilities in Arlington. LOS numbers are simply plucked from comparisons with other cities.

In the end, this flawed approach benefits nobody, including sports players who find it difficult to get field time. Let’s try to bust several myths about Arlington’s parks.

MYTH # 1 Arlington has too few sports fields.
Internal county documents show that fields have been over-reserved, sometimes for twice the amount of time actually needed. Thousands of hours were being allocated to teams who did not use or need them. In-person staff “rover reports” confirmed this issue and so have outside experts hired by DPRwho reviewed the management of Arlington’s fields.

This created the appearance that fields were in use, when in reality they were empty yet unusable by other teams.

Moreover, a closer look at when fields are empty – such as Saturday evenings — would reveal that scheduling problems often are the result of preferred playing times rather than lack of field space.

MYTH #2 The PSMP is based on sound methodology and data
The PSMP, which will guide future park planning, contains no data about the actual supply and utilization of various sports fields. Instead, the lynchpin of its recommendations is “population-based Level of Service” (LOS) derived from generalizations and comparisons with other localities in the U.S.

The professional consultants assisting the county even provided DPR with Arlington’s POPS LOS guidelines stating that each community “determine its own LOS standard based on current supply/demand and future supply/demand projections”

But that professional advice has been excluded from the public PSMP document, commissions, and the County Board. Arlington’s actual supply/demand data are nowhere to be seen in the PSMP document.

More information on the Population Based LOS

MYTH 3# Don’t worry. LOS figures are not “set in stone”
Oh yes they are, because all other recommendations are based on them. Community planning processes rely on this information, but this is the only benchmarking information being made available for all park and recreational planning.

Without actual utilization (supply & demand) data, the only “data” that Arlington will use for community planning and investment decisions will refer back to the supposed “need” shown in the PSMP.

The Chair of the County Board recently acknowledged it would be nearly impossible to re-purpose a field to meet higher-priority needs or spend maintenance monies elsewhere because the PSMP would be relied on to determine those public space needs. This is in spite of internal data saying differently.

Even if the recommendations are reviewed in 5 years as proposed, all park planning and investment decisions in the next 5 years will be based solely on these recommendations with no data to support them, and the future review will still refer back to these PSMP recommendations.

MYTH #4 This won’t affect me.
Whether you enjoy a walk through your neighborhood parks, have kids who play sports, care about tree canopy and environmental issues or are just a tax-paying resident, retaining and expanding unneeded facilities – at great expense — will affect you.

Services throughout the County are being reduced or eliminated and the growing needs of our population continues to be restricted by our limited supply of public land.

The PSMP will affect how public parkland will meet the open-space, natural areas and recreational needs of a growing population for decades to come, and this does affect everyone. It could even affect Arlington’s ability to deal with a shortage of space for crowded classrooms; with transparent data about facility needs, even APS fields could be better designed and utilized to make room for a school expansion.

MYTH #5  People advocating for parks and schools just hate sports.
Sports advocates have been fed a false narrative that others just want to take away their facilities. Yet leaders in the sports community have acknowledged that even they don’t know what the current capacity is for the fields in Arlington and that over-scheduling has been a consistent problem.

Athletic facilities have not been managed properly, and there are some recent improvements, which is good news for everyone. However, the PSMP should acknowledge the underlying issues which perpetuated a mis-perception of field usage and need. And the PSMP should also make sure to consider:
• how fields could be creatively optimized to meet future park and rec needs,
• how transparency in usage & allocation benefits sports users & the general public and,
• how improved field maintenance can allow for a better sport user experience
These important factors, which even sports advocates can agree to, should be made part of the PSMP recommendations for optimizing our facilities to benefit all Arlington residents.

MYTH #6 There’s nothing I can do to support this issue.
Yes there are! We all want the best possible outcome for the future of our parks and our community engagement and planning.

So here are some actions you can take to make a big difference:
1. Sign the Parks4everyone Petition on Change.org.
2. Email the County Board countyboard@arlingtonva.us.
3. Add your comments to the county’s quick 7 question survey about the PSMP.
Example: “This plan needs to meet the needs of our growing community. Until this plan has resident priorities, transparent data reviewed by the public, this plan should not be adopted by the County Board.”
4. Attend a POPS Open House on November 15th
5. Make public comment at the Saturday Board meetings. The next one is on November 17, 2018 at 8:30 am.
6. Sit one on one with your County Board member at Open Door Mondays. Here is the schedule.