On Friday, Augusta officials celebrated the opening of a new splash pad; on Tuesday, city employees found it vandalized. And some commissioners are hopping mad.
It’s just one more problem in a series of them under Parks and Recreation Department director Maurice McDowell.
“I’ve had it. We can’t seem to maintain anything, I could go on and on listing places where the grass is not cut, buildings falling down, and people can’t even get access to the swimming pools and splash pads,” District 3 Commissioner Catherine McKnight said. “People in the community are getting angry.”
McKnight and fellow Commissioner Brandon Garrett have both stopped short of calling for McDowell’s dismissal but have said the commission needs to discuss potential changes in the department. District 10 Commissioner John Clarke makes no bones about his displeasure, publicly calling for McDowell to be terminated.
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According to McKnight, McDowell decided to give parks and recreation employees the entire weekend of July 4 off, which closed down the area’s swimming pools, splash pads and tennis courts.
During the long weekend, vandals struck at the McBean Community Center splash pad for the second time.
McDowell, who has been director of parks and recreation for two and a half years, has faced criticism in the past for only operating the pools and splash pads for only a few hours during the day and closing them before most people get off work, and his response has been there is a lack of lifeguards.
“It just doesn’t make sense that the very weekend — a holiday weekend when people have the spare time to swim or play tennis — that all of the facilities are closed,” McKnight said.
In late May, McDowell stunned members of the Public Services Committee when he tried to divert $1 million allocated through federal American Recovery Plan funding for renovations and improvements at Riverwalk and Diamond Lakes Park. Instead of focusing the money on the poorly-maintained Riverwalk, McDowell asked for the money to be used to enlarge the Barbecue Pit at Julian Smith Casino.
“It was a bait and switch, and we shot that down,” Clarke said at the time.
Also recently, McDowell, who has been with the city since 2011 starting as a capital projects’ manager, was called before the commission to explain why renovations to the Henry Brigham Center were stalled. The commission had approved $6 million for the repairs and McDowell said the lowest bid came in at over $7 million, to which (then) City Administrator Odie Donald decided to put the project out for rebid.
When the next round of bids came in at over $8.3 million, McDowell quietly tabled the project. The Augusta Commission voted by consent on June 21 to use $1.6 in American Recovery Plan funding to cover the shortfall after being told that portions of the roof at the Brigham Center were in danger of collapse.
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McDowell also raised alarm after he cut off funding to the Augusta Port Authority while simultaneously allowing the Boathouse at the Marina fall into a derelict state. The building has been empty for the past two years and now is permanently closed to the public due to safety concerns.
So far, the only person to defend McDowell has been Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. who has reminded commissioners repeatedly of McDowell’s short tenure as director.
Clarke said commission support eroded further when McDowell took commissioners on a bus tour showing which parks should be closed to save the city money. McDowell has consistently claimed that it costs the city $250,000 a year to maintain Pendleton King Park when the budget for the park is only $175,000 and the park is largely run by volunteers.
“One of the parks he wants to close only costs the city $4,000 a year to maintain, and Pendleton King is run by volunteers, yet he wants them both closed. None of it makes any sense,” Clarke said.
Garrett says that it is time for the commission to discuss changes in the Parks and Recreation Department.
“He’s gotten rid of or forced out most of the staff with institutional knowledge and abilities to run these programs. We keep hearing of plans to make improvements, but none seems to come to fruition. I know he has lost quite a bit if not more than half of the commission support,” Garrett said.
Scott Hudson is the senior reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
