Letter to New Castle Recreation Commission:

No reason to change the method of volunteer leadership of the youth football program
April 16, 2010
by Erik Nicolaysen

Dear Ms. Kerulo, 

I am writing you as chair of the New Castle Recreation Commission. 

In the 1930’s my father was one of five members appointed at the creation of the Recreation Board; he served for 16 years and was chair for 12 years. Each member of the commission took responsibility for one or more programs and ran them on a volunteer basis.  As this was the Depression Era there were little or no funds provided by the town. 

Since then we have had nearly 80 years of programs run by volunteers, with support from the Commission, but not operational control by the staff. Current rules call for most sports programs to be supported by fees or donations with volunteer leadership.  The town funds provided to the Recreation Commission are for staff to provide support.  As a member of the town board in the early eighties, the principal was established that each program would be self-supporting, and the Commission budget for support was reduced accordingly.

The current controversy about the football program indicates to my mind a personality conflict, but not something that justifies a change in the method of volunteer leadership of the program.  There is no reason to change the long-term fundamental method of volunteer leadership of the program. I coached for some number of years in the 70’s when the program was run by a board chaired by Larry Caso with relatively little Recreation Commission involvement.

With the current town tax problems the Commission has a responsibility to correct any problem, but not at the expense of making it a town employee obligation.  If the commission intends to make a fundamental change of replacing the program’s volunteer operational control, then some public hearings should be held for comment from the public. This change has long-term tax implications.

I have known Peter Zimmerman for some number of years and he has run the program for a long time with little controversy.  Since the Commission is an independent body, the fact that this has developed as it has, I have to consider it a failure of leadership by the Commission.

Erik Nicolaysen

CC: NewCastleNOW.org; Barbara Gerrard .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), Elise Kessler Motel

<.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)>, Gerald Faiella <.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)>, John Buckley <.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)>, Michael Wolfensohn <.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)>, Robin Stout <.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)>

____________
To find our previous coverage of the football controversy, click HERE.