Share This Article
If you’ve been following the playground chatter lately, welcome to the game of two truths and a lie – Sudbury playground edition. The first truth: our town is full of neighbors who care deeply about our public spaces. The second truth: the Park & Recreation Commission (PRC) cares about the playground, all of the CPC projects we’ve fought for, and we report on them monthly. And the lie? That the PRC is secretly colluding to drain your wallet, ignorant of OML, ignoring your opinions, actively withholding information, sitting on mountains of money or interested in sabotaging the playground.
While I serve on the commission, I’m writing this as a private citizen.
Let’s start with the obvious: the Town’s passion around the playground is real, and it’s welcome. Your emails, Facebook posts, and comments show our community cares. Nothing happens in this town without that passion. But some recent comments aren’t just misguided, they’re flat-out false. It’s disappointing, when I see comments from individuals who I know have familiarity with town rules, currently sit or have previously sat on Town boards, and even others who have spouses in Town government, that anyone would suggest a volunteer commission would act against the community, violate laws, withhold information or collude. If that’s how you spend time during a warm summer week, I suggest you take a swim and think of productive ways to help, instead of purposely misrepresenting our work.
To anyone sending the same copy/paste form email: we hear you, but recycling messages doesn’t help anyone. Tell us about playground configurations you’ve loved elsewhere. Tell us about specific equipment your kids and their friends love. Do you want picnic tables or more benches? Do you have experience with the way the sun shifts shade? Specific ideas move the needle; generic complaints do not.
Here’s a quick civic lesson: the PRC does not oversee the Park & Rec Department (PRD) or Town Staff. That’s the Town Manager and, ultimately, the Select Board. We need to do a better job of aligning, but there are limits to our authority. Understanding funding is just as critical. Your average Sudbury taxpayer contributes roughly $65 a year toward parks and recreation, including parks and grounds work. That’s why we leverage Community Preservation Act funds for larger projects, including playgrounds, and we are grateful for that funding. If you want to improve our recreational assets, we need to change how they are funded.
Now for the facts about what’s been accomplished. Some delays occurred, some I supported (this funding came during COVID, we all remember the difficulty of starting projects then), some I didn’t, but these were PRD decisions driven largely by impacts to the community center and summer camp. Sudbury Summer camp funds a large portion of the PRD budget. The original budget for site work, tree work, and pour-in-play was about $235k, with contingency bringing it close to $270k. That old playground equipment wasn’t just rusty, fixed by good scrubbing; it was condemned and unsafe. We were told last month that current expenditures were around $252k, leaving roughly the $30k as originally earmarked for shade and equipment. Is that enough money? Not sure, but there wasn’t some gross misuse of funding.
What’s left? Plenty. I share the frustration, especially lack of project collaboration with our commission, but more importantly that of an incomplete project, that we have been addressing. We’re consulting other towns, engaging DPW and Facilities staff who have deep playground expertise, and ensuring commission members with kids provide input. We’re exploring funding for ADA upgrades so future dollars are wisely spent. The work is ongoing and far from ignored.
Beyond all of this, remember, we are your neighbors. Our kids play sports together, we attend community events together, and we shop at the same Route 20 businesses to support our town together. We volunteer our time, away from our families, jobs, and personal responsibilities, to help move Sudbury forward. Your passion is appreciated, but let’s channel it into ideas that actually improve our playground and our town.
So, in true two truths and a lie fashion: we love our town, we care deeply about the playground and other CPC projects, and the FaceBook comment section is occasionally…creative. Let’s focus on the first two and keep building Sudbury into the community we all want it to be.