August 2014 - Parks & Recreation - 46

Maryland

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake makes tough choices
to provide quality park and recreation offerings for her city
Introduction by Danielle Taylor | Interview by Kevin O'Hara | Photography by Mark Dennis

B

altimore native Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has not been without her
share of controversy in the four years she has served as mayor of her
home city. Succeeding the former mayor in 2010 and winning election
in her own right in 2011, Mayor Rawlings-Blake inherited multimillion-dollar
budget deficits from previous administrations and quickly needed to address
the city's economic distress. She was faced with an impossible choice in 2012
for the city's park and recreation department: Continue funding all park facilities on a reduced budget or close several recreation centers throughout the
city in order to increase quality of services at a smaller number of locations.
Ultimately, she decided to close a handful of centers so available funds could be
spread more thickly across the board, and others were kept open but are now
being run by private operators.
By 2014, however, the tables had
turned. The $2.5 billion budget she proposed this March included a two percent raise for city workers and no cuts
to city services, plus $3 million in added funding for parks and recreation.
Much of the Baltimore City Department of Recreation and Parks'
(BCRP) recent success can be attributed to the new leadership of BCRP Director Ernest Burkeen Jr., a member
of the NRPA board of directors from
2010 to 2013, hired by Mayor Rawl-

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Parks & Recreation

ings-Blake in 2012. Before moving to
Baltimore, Burkeen served as director
of parks and recreation in Miami,
Fort Lauderdale and Detroit, and he
brings with him more than 30 years
of senior management experience in
the field of parks and recreation.
Decisions like the one to bring Burkeen to Baltimore reflect Mayor Rawlings-Blake's continuing commitment
to parks and recreation, a living tribute of sorts to her late father, Howard
Peters " Pete " Rawlings, who served

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as a member of Maryland's House of
Delegates from 1979 until his death
in 2003. A noted statesman and
champion of social equity himself,
Delegate Rawlings' legacy was memorialized in 2004 when Baltimore's
beloved Druid Hill Conservatory,
established in 1888, was officially renamed by law as The Howard Peters
Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic
Gardens.
In addition to supporting parks
and recreation in her political role,
Mayor Rawlings-Blake also serves
on the board of directors for Baltimore's Parks and People Foundation.
Last month, Kevin O'Hara, NRPA's
vice president of Urban and Government Affairs, spoke with Mayor
Rawlings-Blake about the culture of
innovation she's perpetuating in Baltimore, the ways BRCP is providing
opportunities for improved health
and wellness as well as crime reduction in the city, and how she is carrying on her father's legacy.
August 2014 - Parks & Recreation

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