December 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 17

AGENCY SPOTLIGHT

Leaps and
Bounds
Essential Information: One recreation
and community center, 198 acres of
developed parkland, one 41-acre community park, nine neighborhood parks,
600 acres of open space, 33 miles of
trails, one skatepark, one outdoor
spraypad, one inline skating rink, one
cultural/historical site, 11 picnic areas,
20 athletic ﬁelds, 12 playgrounds, two
reservoirs with ﬁshing access, one sand
volleyball court, one cemetery, one concessions facility.

Growth Spurt:
The past two decades have been an exciting period of change for Erie, Colorado, and its newly founded parks and
recreation department has done an admirable job of keeping up. Erie's 1990
population of 1,258 had remained relatively stable for several decades, but
when new housing developments were
built to accommodate the inﬂux of suburbanites from the nearby cities of Denver and Boulder, the population shot up
to nearly 6,300 by 2000 and more than
18,000 by 2010.
" Prior to 2000, streets in downtown Erie weren't even paved! " says
Parks and Recreation Director Jill Wait.
" These new residents were crying out
for places to play-parks, trails, playgrounds, open spaces, ball ﬁelds, and
a community/senior center. " In 2006,
voters approved a $16.8 million bond
initiative to build a community center,
and the new Department of Parks and
Recreation was formed in May 2007.
Since then, Erie Parks and Recreation
has grown from a staff of 12 to a dedicated corps of 29 full-time staff and 161

part-time and seasonal staff, augmented by nearly 10,000 volunteer hours
each year. And this agency's staffers
aren't satisﬁed with simply providing
the basics-they're committed to offering exciting, innovative opportunities
for recreation and play. One example is
the Erie Community Skatepark, scheduled to open this month, which will be
the ﬁrst public Street League-Certiﬁed
Skatepark in the world. Other offerings
include a wide variety of non-traditional ﬁtness programs, including TRX Suspension Training and Nia, and hugely
popular community events, like the
Great Erie Outdoor Adventure, a community-wide campout that drew 689
overnight campers in 2012.
A deﬁning measure of the department's success is its recent CAPRA
accreditation, which the agency was
awarded at the 2012 NRPA Congress
and Exposition. CAPRA, the Commission for Accreditation of Park and
Recreation Agencies, recognizes park
and recreation agencies for excellence
in operations and service through an
extensive process that evaluates an
agency's compliance with the 144 standards for national accreditation. Erie

MUNICIPALITY: City of Erie,

Colorado
POPULATION: 18,505
YEAR AGENCY FOUNDED: 2007
ANNUAL OPERATING BUDGET:

$4,744,544
AGENCY HEAD: Jill Wait,
Parks & Recreation Director

passed with ﬂying colors, achieving a
rare 100-percent compliance rate. The
agency was also recognized as a ﬁnalist for the 2012 National Gold Medal for
Excellence in Park and Recreation Management at the 2012 Congress.
Erie has achieved a lot in only ﬁve
years of existence, but the department
sees this as just the beginning.
" Earlier this year, Erie voters approved
a 10-year extension to the trails and
natural areas property tax by an overwhelming majority (75 percent to 25
percent)-further evidence that parks
and recreation amenities and services
in Erie are essential to our residents'
quality of life, " Wait says. " Team Erie is
committed to our vision: Erie is a community where everyone participates in
recreational experiences that engage,
inspire, and enrich lives. "

WWW.NRPA.ORG | DECEMBER 2012 |

Parks & Recreation

15
December 2012 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2012 - Parks & Recreation
