Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Wednesday that he’s stripped the troubled D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation of its repair, construction and modernization responsibilities, turning the job over to his schools facilities chief.
Allen Lew, head of the Office of Public Education Facilities Modernization, will manage DPR’s capital program, which totals $58.2 million this year alone. The move mirrors the city’s reaction to crumbling schools: In June 2007, the D.C. Council created a new office to focus on school modernization, leaving the chancellor’s office to focus on academics.
Parks and recreation, Fenty said, lacks the expertise to effectively manage its capital projects. The agency should be focused on programs, he said — let Lew “worry about building new things and maintaining the things that we have.”
“What we tell [Lew] what to build he will build in the most excellent way,” Fenty said outside Southwest’s Bald Eagle Recreation Center, which is in line for a $3 million overhaul and a new boxing pavilion.
But the shift raised “great concern” for Councilman Harry Thomas Jr., chairman of the parks and recreation committee, who said he feared that Fenty might be trying to circumvent the council’s oversight of DPR’s capital budget and its construction contracts.
“If anything we should have been strengthening that agency, not moving the job from one place to another,” Thomas said. “I’m going to be very vigilant about ensuring the parks and recreation budget maintains autonomy without the mayor going around the process.”
A scathing review of DPR’s capital management issued in May by the D.C. inspector general accused the agency of wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, failing to monitor contractors, and allowing projects to go forward despite poor planning.
Lew is no stranger to DPR’s capital program, having managed the reconstruction of the Wilson Pool and the renovation of several school athletic fields. He said the two agencies will “work together to simplify things to get much more work done.”
Clark Ray, DPR director, said he has 10 agency employees working on capital projects. Their fate is unclear.
“I know our project will be in good hands with him,” Ray said of Lew.
Fenty said one agency focused on construction will produce a “faster, better, stronger work product at the end of the day.”
